They Grow Up So Fast
by Miskcat
Summary: As Alphonse approaches adulthood, Roy discovers that they will face issues other than what might normally be expected
1. Problem? What Problem?

Problem

_Problem? What Problem?_

A/N: This story takes place in the same AU-ish world as "The Unweaving." I hadn't planned on a sequel, but then Dailenna put this little blot bunny in my ear, and I couldn't help it. Enjoy!

**xXxXxXx**

"…so we'll likely end up sending a security detail down south," Roy told his visitors, picking up his martini from the small table beside the armchair, "just to have a presence there, even though I doubt we'll really need it." He glanced aside as Alphonse came into the living room, a large tray in each hand. "Those look heavy, Al," he said, returning the glass to the table and starting to rise. "Let me help you."

"No, you sit right back down, Roy ," Al smiled with a slight headshake. "This is my job tonight, and I want the three of you to relax."

Roy obeyed reluctantly, subsiding into the chair even though he continued to keep watch. Al came further into the room, with his inevitable shadow, the young female calico cat named Maesy, trotting briskly behind him. The low, flickering light from the fireplace set the boy's light brown hair glowing and darkened his grey eyes almost to black as he paused, surveying the inhabitants of the room. He bent over the side table between Riza Hawkeye's armchair and the couch where Jean Havoc's long form sprawled (with the marmalade cat, the male Edo, purring on one leg), and set down a tray of appetizers without mishap. Then he crossed in front of the fireplace, to put the other on the little table beside Roy's glass.

Obviously Roy's vigilance had been unnecessary, even if it had become a well-developed habit. Al cast a fond smile of reassurance at the older man before straightening up again. Maesy sat patiently waiting by his left foot.

Havoc grabbed one of the appetizers and popped it into his mouth. "Al," he remarked around the mouthful, chewing enthusiastically, "this is really good."

"I'm glad you think so. I thought they turned out pretty well," the young man smiled his thanks. He looked a bit flushed, and his white shirt clung to him in a couple of spots, but he seemed to be enjoying his preparations.

Roy chose an item from his own tray – some sort of pastry puff – and bit into it, flooding his mouth with the taste of crab. "'Pretty well' is an understatement," he said. "This is spectacular."

"I tell you, kid," Havoc continued, grabbing another couple of morsels and feeding a chunk of crab to Edo despite a forbidding glance from Hawkeye, "some day you're going to rival your wife as a cook."

At which Al rolled his eyes and shot back over his shoulder as he returned to the kitchen, "Since I never plan to get married, I really doubt that." And he disappeared, his shadow trotting behind him, to continue his preparations for dinner. Tonight was the very first time he was serving a full meal to a set of guests, after learning as much as he could about cooking from his guardian, and Roy knew he wanted everything to be perfect. The aromas issuing from the kitchen for the last hour were mouth watering.

Once his young ward had vanished, Roy leaned back and stretched a lazy pair of legs out in front of him, holding his martini glass on his stomach. Crossing his ankles as he looked across at Hawkeye, he raised his eyebrows and commented, "You see, Riza? I told you. He's not even interested in girls right now."

The woman sighed, her face resuming the patient look that had been irritating him all week whenever this subject arose. She pushed a long tendril of blond hair behind one ear. "Roy, didn't you hear him just now? That little break in his voice?"

"Maybe he's getting a cold, I don't know. But he's not showing any really obvious signs."

"Well, boss," Havoc inserted doubtfully, "he's grown about an inch in the last six months. That's usually a sign." He stroked the marmalade cat, absently, a couple of times.

"But he's just a kid," Roy insisted. "And he's still getting his feet on the ground from being back in his body. Puberty is the last thing he's ready for, on top of everything else."

"Roy," Hawkeye reminded him gently, "even if he seems a lot younger sometimes, he is seventeen. Ready or not, it's happening to him. In fact, it's overdue."

"Which means," Havoc remarked, stuffing another appetizer into his mouth, "it might have to make up for lost time. So it's probably going to hit with a bang. So to speak," he added, then cringed a little as his superior officer scowled across the room. Edo jumped off his leg and stalked away.

Roy's two subordinates were absolutely convinced on the subject, and he was surprised how much it bothered him. It wasn't that he didn't want the youngster to grow up. He just worried – a lot – that Al was still getting used to being in his body, and really didn't need the extra complications of puberty when he hadn't fully adjusted to merely being normal again.

Alphonse was such an odd mixture at the moment: fully competent in emergency situations, friendly in social situations but still wary and a little unsure how he should relate to everyone. It was like he was an adult in a crisis, after experiencing so many of them in his travels with Ed, but he remained much younger in day-to-day dealings with people. He'd never really had a chance just to live an ordinary life, day after day. Sometimes the very ordinariness of things so bewildered him that he doubted himself, doubted that he'd ever really be normal.

And sometimes the bodily sensations overwhelmed him – even now, almost ten months after his human form had been restored. Roy remembered, with a shudder, Al's first (and only) day on the part-time job Gracia had offered him about five months ago, helping in the flower shop she'd started. Halfway through the day, she had called Roy at the office, worried because Al seemed to have broken down and had run in a panic out of the shop, she wasn't sure where. Roy had rushed home to find the youngster huddled, shivering and distressed, in bed with the covers over his head, while Maesy walked back and forth across the lump in the bed, mewing.

The kid had only spent ten minutes in the greenhouse behind the shop, before the heavy, humid, powerful swirl of smells – scents of flowers, smell of the dirt, tang of fertilizer, general moist, aromatic miasma of growing things – had overwhelmed his senses until he couldn't handle it any more. He'd had to escape the flood of sensation before it suffocated him.

This had happened in other contexts too, and for a while these attacks where it was all just too much occurred as often as two or three times a week. They tended to take place in crowds, or closed spaces, or somewhere in which one type of sensation drowned out the others. (Roy wouldn't dare take Al to see a concert, for example, that featured a lot of loud drumming or where the brass instruments predominated.) It was fortunate that the balance at home seemed to be just right; the boy never seemed to face that sort of attack here. Thank goodness.

And he was getting a bit better. Slowly. Yet Roy was privately beginning to wonder if the kid would ever entirely readjust to the world of the five senses. Still, the attacks weren't happening as often any more. And Al had even begun his medical lessons, after Roy had found him a small study group associated with the medical school. It was led by Master Yuen, a Xingian doctor who knew something about balance. The man had been a godsend, and it was probably because of him that Al had found whatever stability he now had.

Although the doctor, in private communication, had attributed this as much to Roy as Roy did to him. That wasn't true, of course, but Roy couldn't help a burst of warm satisfaction when he thought of it. His primary goal in life, to his surprise, seemed to have become to keep Alphonse safe, and help him grow to be a perfectly normal young man. But still…throw puberty into the current mix, as precarious as Al's equilibrium really was, and who knew what disasters could follow?

Hawkeye and Havoc were simply wrong. They had to be. It just couldn't happen now.

Roy emerged from his musings to find both of his companions watching him, sporting almost identical knowing looks. He pursed his lips and took a larger-than-prudent gulp of his martini. He was still coughing when Alphonse emerged again from his warm, aromatic domain.

"If the three of you would like to come in," the young man addressed the group in general, "I've got everything ready in the dining room." His voice wobbled slightly, as his nervousness briefly betrayed itself. But the voice didn't break, Roy was certain. He rose to his feet and motioned his guests to precede him to the dining room, resolutely avoiding their eyes.

They'd made the occasion as informal as they could, so Al could just concentrate on the food and not have to worry about maintaining an atmosphere. He knew, of course, that Roy would have done what he could to help if they'd gone more formal, but above all, Roy wanted to make sure that this was all Alphonse's evening as much as possible.

Which was why Havoc had showed up in jeans and a plaid shirt, while Roy wore casual slacks and a grey shirt. Hawkeye's hair hung loose about her shoulders, but she still managed to look cool and elegant in navy slacks and a matching navy shirt with sharp, clean lines. If he weren't so determined to avoid her knowing glances, Roy might have complimented her on how great she looked this evening. He didn't get to see her in civilian clothes nearly as often as he'd like to.

The three of them sat down to white bowls on a crisp white tablecloth, the bowls containing servings of steaming onion soup, with a basketful of warm sliced crusty bread as accompaniment in the centre of the table. Al hovered briefly while they ate, and Roy flashed him a smile of encouragement. So far, it was as good as the man had expected. Al really enjoyed cooking, and as a result he had soaked up instructions and techniques like a sponge. Roy had cautioned him not to try anything too complicated for his first time, and the young man had followed his advice.

As they were finishing their soup, Al brought in a large silver platter which, when he set it on the table and swept off the warming lid, revealed a feast of grilled chicken breast stuffed with goat cheese and roasted red peppers, grilled vegetables fresh from the garden, and wax beans sautéed with walnuts and lemon. The combined aromas swept out from under the lid in a warm, delicious rush. The youngster expertly served each plate from the platter, then beamed at his guests as he poured them glasses of the light white wine Roy had helped him choose. Roy looked up as his own glass was filled, and favoured his housemate with another proud smile.

And realized with a pang that Al was indeed considerably taller than he'd been even six months ago. Havoc might, in fact, have underestimated how much the boy – the young man – had grown.

For one moment of reeling vertigo, Roy fought the urge to burst into hysterical laughter as the twin thoughts swirled madly through his head: first, that Edward would have been furious at this development, but mostly, that all hell might be about to break loose and there was nothing he could do about it.

His eyes darted across the table, to find both of his lieutenants watching him. Again. Hawkeye, suppressing a little smile, bent to slice delicately through the tender chicken breast and lift a forkful to her mouth, while Havoc leaned back in his chair, looked quite deliberately at Alphonse, and remarked, "You're sure growing, Al. If you keep going like this, you'll end up taller than Mustang, here."

Roy glared at him, but his subordinate wouldn't even look at him, instead watching the youngster over the rim of his wine glass.

Al took his seat to Roy's left, finally free just to sit down for a while and eat with the others. He looked cheerfully at the man across the table from him. "Oh no," he said. "Roy's always going to be taller than me. I'm quite sure I won't grow any more than this. Would you like more chicken, Jean? That's quite a small piece."

"Thank you, I'm fine. This is very good, by the way. You've got a natural talent, I think. And you didn't use alchemy or anything?"

Al laughed. "No. Teacher always told us that we should only use alchemy for important things. I mean – " he paused, briefly flustered, his cheeks lightly colouring – "I mean, having you here for dinner is important – I didn't mean it wasn't. I just mean – "

"Don't worry, I know what you mean." Havoc waved away his young host's distress with a little sweep of his glass. "But that makes the meal even more impressive."

"I agree," Hawkeye nodded. She lifted her own glass. "In fact, I think we should toast Alphonse for the excellent work he's done." She looked at Roy, waiting as he took up his wine, and then proclaimed, "To Alphonse Elric, a budding chef and a very gracious host."

"To Alphonse," Havoc agreed with another wave.

"To you, Al," Roy smiled, raising his glass. He sat in silence for several moments as the conversation continued around him, just watching the boy and enjoying Al's pleasure. The kid really had come a long way, since the moment he'd returned to his body, weak and afraid, opening grief-stricken eyes for the first time on the sight of his dead brother in Roy's arms. To see him now, strong and vital, flushed with happiness at his successes this evening…Roy didn't know how anything could be better than this.

Al paused briefly as Hawkeye and Havoc conversed, and glanced over at Roy, sharing a private smile. So much of the time, the boy seemed to know what he was thinking. Well, good. Then tonight he'd recognize just how glad the older man was for him, how grateful he was that he had the chance to share Al's life, his growth, his successes, and even his failures. That's what families did, and Alphonse was his family now. His little brother.

"So tell me, Al," Havoc's voice broke into their shared moment. "You're studying medicine with that Xingian doctor's group, right? How do you like your studies? And," the man added with a smirk and a sly little wink, "are there any cute girls in the group? Had any dates yet?"

A long silence as Alphonse stared at him, cheeks swiftly darkening to pink. At last the young man lowered his eyes, cutting into a piece of roast potato as he replied, "I love the studies, and I'm glad I decided to go into medicine. All of us in the group are becoming good friends, whether we're men or women. We're all enjoying what we're learning, way too much to waste our time with anything else."

Havoc, Roy decided in the small part of his brain that remained rational. He would strangle Havoc first.

And Hawkeye would be next, if she didn't change the subject this minute. He himself didn't dare speak, or he'd find himself on his feet, throwing knives across the table.

The woman met his glare with an amused twitch of her lips, but dutifully obeyed his silent yet unmistakable command. "That's probably wise, Alphonse," she remarked with a nod. "You'd hate to get too distracted from your studies. What have you been learning lately?"

And as Al launched into an enthusiastic recap of the major systems of the body from both the Amestrian and Xingian points of view, Roy's blood pressure gradually eased back to normal. (A few gulps of the wine definitely helped.) So it only took a couple of minutes before he could rejoin the conversation like a civilized human being, tossing in an anecdote about Xingian acupuncture that he'd heard in Ishbal. And even Havoc, probably sensing how close he had come to being carved up with the chicken, let his pet preoccupation drop for a while and finally returned to chatting normally. Showing only slight unease now and then in response to Roy's watching eyes.

The rest of the evening passed very pleasantly, the three adults eventually adjourning back to the living room to let dinner settle. While Al made a pot of coffee in the kitchen, Roy added wood to the fire. Then he and Hawkeye resumed their original seats on either side of the fireplace, while Al sat at the other end of the couch from Havoc, so he could easily jump up and return to the kitchen when it was time for dessert. Maesy immediately hopped into her accustomed position on Al's lap, while Edo sat on the floor facing Havoc and Hawkeye, looking from one to the other as he tried to decide who would next have the honour of petting him.

The conversation meandered lazily as they grew more relaxed (Edo finally having decided on Hawkeye, curling up in her lap and immediately dropping off to sleep). The almost waterlike sound of the flames and the occasional pop of a log accompanied their talk as they ranged from Al's studies, to things going on at the office, to what the cats had been up to this morning, and even to the subject of Edward. They all suspected that Ed might have been a bit bemused at Al's extensive culinary adventures, but he agreed wistfully that his brother would have been proud even so.

"Have you heard from Winry lately?" Havoc wondered with a drowsy yawn. Roy threw him a sharp glance, but the question seemed to have been meant genuinely, rather than as another little hint about Al's emergence into adulthood.

"Oh yes," Al nodded. "She's moved to Rush Valley now, did you know? She's learning more about automail manufacture, and studying a little medicine too."

At the mention of medicine, the speculative glint sparked again in Havoc's eyes, and Roy could almost hear him thinking something like, "Keep it all in the family." But at his superior's warning glare, he clearly decided against saying anything. Wisely.

Shortly after that, Al gently dislodged Maesy from his lap and headed back into the kitchen, this time producing small bowls of fruit with a dollop of ice cream for dessert. He topped up everyone's coffee, and they ate in companionable silence as the fire slowly burned down again and the cats waited for someone to accidentally (or, in Al's case, deliberately) drop them a couple of small dabs of ice cream.

At last the two lieutenants stood, took their bowls into the kitchen, and made moves to leave.

"You did a superb job, Alphonse." Hawkeye set her hands on his shoulders and gave him a light kiss on one cheek. "Everything was delicious. If you ever decide against continuing in medicine, I think you could already have another career lined up."

Roy helped her put on her jacket, and opened the door for her as Havoc shoved his arms into his own jacket. "She's right, Al, it was great," the other man said. "Don't quit medicine, though, 'cause you'll be even better at that. But don't just bury yourself in books either, okay?" For a final time that evening he gave a sly wink and remarked, "Get a girlfriend and live a little too, all right? Girls are fun." He gave Al's hair a fond ruffling, then caught sight of Roy's expression, yipped a quick, "Well, goodnight, then," and darted out the door after Hawkeye.

After shutting the door behind them with a firm click, Roy put an arm around his ward's shoulders. "They're right, Alphonse. You were a perfect host, and the food was delicious. Well done. I hope you feel satisfied with everything?"

"Thanks, Roy. I really do. I was a little nervous just before they got here, but then I calmed down and it all just seemed to go like it was supposed to." Al bent and picked Maesy off the floor, cradling her against his chest as Roy returned to his arm chair to finish the last of his coffee. "It was a bit odd, though…," the young man mused, following him slowly into the living room.

"What was?"

"Is Jean…feeling lonely or something? He sure had women on his mind tonight, didn't he?"

Roy carefully set his coffee mug back on the side table, and sighed to himself. He really knew, deep down inside, that his lieutenants were right, about everything. But he had hoped not to have to have this conversation just yet, especially not this late in the evening.

"Well," he began carefully, "it isn't actually himself he's thinking of, as you must have noticed. He's thinking of you, Alphonse."

"Me?" The boy's eyebrows shot up. "Why would he be thinking of m – oh. Oh, you mean that." His eyes grew wide, the flickering light again making them appear darker than they were.

"Yes, Al – that. I hadn't really thought of it yet, but Jean and Riza have been reminding me that, well, you're seventeen. Which is actually rather late, but you haven't even been back in your body for a year yet, so it never occurred to me that this issue would come up so soon."

"Yeah, I hadn't really thought of it either," Al agreed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully on Maesy's head as she kneaded against his chest. "But you really don't have to bother about it."

"I think we do have to bother, though, Al. I can see some changes already – how tall you've gotten, suddenly, and maybe your voice breaking a little." Roy hated that he suddenly felt like he was fifty years old. How had he come to be in a position where he had to have The Talk with a seventeen year old? But of course, if he considered Alphonse his little brother.

He stifled the hysterical thought that Ed was getting some kind of posthumous revenge for something or other, and made himself soldier on. "It might be best," he went on more grimly than he intended, "if we have a talk about what's going to happen, so you know what to expect. Maybe starting with, well…" He paused again, and took the plunge. "…maybe starting with the sort of dreams you might exper – "

"No, we don't need to talk about all that, Roy," Al told him with a light laugh. "I can tell you hate doing this, and you really don't have to. It's not going to be a problem."

"But I don't think it's wise just to ignore it and be unprepared. We do need to talk, Al. If not this minute, then in the next day or two."

"No we don't. It's not going to be a problem, because none of it is going to happen. So don't worry about it."

"What do you mean – it's not going to happen? Of course it's going – "

"I decided I'd rather not bother with all that puberty business," Al told him cheerfully, "so I used my alchemy and made it stop. Permanently."

"You _what??"_ Roy yelled, leaping to his feet.


	2. Exactly how deep CAN I dig this hole?

Exactly How Deep CAN I Dig This Hole

_Exactly How Deep CAN I Dig This Hole?_

Roy waited in grim silence while the waitress set down the three coffee mugs, followed by Hawkeye's muffin and the danish Havoc had ordered. The mid-morning coffee break crowd had just begun to wander into the out-of-the-way diner he'd chosen, and already the clinking of spoons and forks against cups and plates was beginning to jar his nerves. When the young woman asked if he and his companions would like anything else – breakfast maybe? – he merely gave his head one abrupt shake. He didn't even feel inclined to flash his smile and try to charm her, as he usually would have. He was that tense.

The waitress moved to the next booth and he leaned forward, laying his arms along the table and cupping his hands around the mug. He stared down into its murky depths for so long that finally he heard Havoc clear his throat from across the table and ask gingerly, "So what's this about, boss?"

Hawkeye, seated beside Havoc, seemed to regard this as her cue to remind her superior officer, "General Schmidt won't appreciate our having cancelled our appointment with him at such short notice. He won't have a very sympathetic ear to our requests after this."

"I couldn't care less about General Schmidt," Roy muttered. "This is much more important."

"Then what exactly is 'this', sir?" the woman inquired.

He set his jaw and finally looked up. He hated moments like this. "You were both right. About everything. About…Alphonse."

Havoc leaned back against the red faux leather of the booth, his lean face sporting a slow, smug smile. "Told you," he said, his voice positively dripping with satisfaction. "It was right there, plain as day; you just didn't want to see it. So what happened after we left last night? You had The Talk, didn't you? Right? You had The Talk?"

"Don't look so happy, Jean, you haven't heard my news yet." Roy retorted sourly.

"Roy, something's happened." Hawkeye, frowning, dropped all pretense of formality. "Al didn't take it well? Or what? What's wrong?"

"I tried to have The Talk, as you both suggested. But it turns out we're so far beyond The Talk now that I…" He paused. The two of them stared anxiously at him, waiting. Even Havoc's smugness had lost a bit of its shine. He sighed. "Alphonse noticed the signs weeks ago, and realized what was starting to happen. So he…" Roy shrugged uncomfortably. "He put a stop to it. With alchemy. He…altered himself, somehow."

"He _what??_" Havoc shrieked. Heads at the next table turned in their direction.

"Keep it a little quieter, Jean, d'you mind? I don't want this broadcast all over the city. That's why I dragged you out of the office; I don't even want the rest of our people to know."

"Sorry, but – but did you say – do you mean to say – " Havoc couldn't seem to choose between babbling and gaping in horror.

"You heard me. He told me he didn't like the things that were happening to him, the way his body reacted. So he took the medical knowledge he's been gaining, and used it to guide his alchemy. And he…did something, I'm not sure what. Atrophied blood vessels, deadened glands, I just don't know. He said he didn't want to talk about it, and he went to bed."

"But that's – that's _alchemical castration!_" Havoc cried. People glanced over again, uneasily, as beneath the table he crossed his legs in horrified reaction.

"Keep your voice down, dammit, Jean!" Roy hissed, hunching into his shoulders.

"This is very serious, isn't it?" Hawkeye frowned. "Can it be undone?"

"Yes it's serious – and I don't have a clue what can be done." Roy spoke from the cloud of deep gloom that had settled over him since last night. "I have to talk to him first, before I decide what to do. If there's anything I _can_ do. Why the _hell_ would he pull something like this? It's just not – not normal. What man would ever – ever – " He shuddered, shrinking from the very thought, and fought the urge to cross his legs as Havoc had done. Instead, he took a gulp of coffee, gasping and spluttering as it burned all the way down. It didn't help that he splattered coffee all over his hand as it jerked the cup from his mouth and slammed it on the table.

He needed a strong drink all right, but by god, this wasn't what he had in mind!

Hawkeye leaned over, carefully mopping up the spilled beverage with a napkin. She wisely stopped just short of grabbing his hand to wipe it too. "Listen, you two, just calm down while we – "

"Calm down!" Havoc blurted. "We have to do something. This is unnatural, and we have to fix it. Look, Roy, I bet it's harder than Al thinks, to – to – completely shut things down that way. He probably just needs a little stimulation, to make things, er, wake up again. If you know what I mean. I've got an idea…"

"I'm listening," Roy muttered darkly.

"There are some magazines we could give him. You know the kind I mean. Some of them are so steamy, the kid would have to be made of stone not to react to them. There are, oh, at least four different magazines that come out monthly, and I'm sure they'd do it. Give him a pile of those, and the – and he – well, things would get, um, moving again, I'm sure of it." Havoc leaned forward, arms crossed on the table, voice rising as he warmed up to his idea. "I mean, let me tell you – this one magazine? Imported from the Gallic provinces? So hot, it's nothing like the mild stuff Amestris produces. The last couple of issues especially, maybe they got inspired by the hot summer over there or something. You just wouldn't believe the stuff they've got in the last few issues. You've never seen such beauties – that gorgeous dark hair – legs that go forever – the skimpiest little bits of lingerie that hardly cover anything – " he cupped his hands in front of him " – and the biggest – the biggest – "

He froze. Roy and Riza stared at him. An older woman at the next table shook her head, muttering darkly down at her scrambled eggs as she bit harshly into her toast.

The colour rose up Havoc's neck. He sank back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. He muttered, "Well…they're… Breda told me about the magazines. He heard about them from this guy…"

"I wonder," Hawkeye remarked, pouring cream into her coffee, "if it might be time to clean out the desks at the office again."

"They're not in the – " Havoc blurted, then froze again. "All right, never mind," he mumbled, staring at the surface of the table, his high cheekbones dusted a delicate pink. "Bad idea."

"And I don't think it would work anyway, Jean," Roy said. "If Al intended to…shut things down…you can bet he'd do a complete job of it. I doubt he'd be capable of reacting to any of those pictures in the way you, er, intend him to."

"But it's just not natural," the lieutenant grumbled. "There's got to be some way of turning him back on again. Maybe if we got him to spend time with these sexy girls Breda kn – I mean this guy who's a friend of Breda knows – "

"Dammit, Jean, what next, do want us to start _pimping_ for him_?_" Roy exclaimed.

A couple from the booth behind Havoc quietly got up and moved to a table across the diner, pointedly avoiding looking at the three officers.

Roy buried his face in his hands. "This just gets better and better," he muttered.

"All right," Hawkeye said firmly. "You two are going to shut up now, and I'll tell you what we'll do. When the workday is finished, you, Roy, are going to talk to Alphonse and find out his reasons. Forget the mechanics of what he did, for now. There's some reason he took such a drastic measure, and you can't help him at all if you don't address that first. So when he gets back from his medical seminar this afternoon, you'll go home and talk to him. You, Havoc, are going back to the office, where you will keep your mouth shut about all this – and clean out your desk and Lieutenant Breda's desk for my inspection tomorrow."

"Nothing to clean out," Havoc mumbled unconvincingly, avoiding her eyes. "And what about you? You said 'we', but you're sure giving the rest of us orders. What are you going to do?"

"I," she replied, calmly spreading butter on her muffin, "am going home with Roy to talk to Alphonse."

Roy lifted his head. "I don't know, Riza, that may not be wise. This is…you know…"

"Guy talk," Havoc supplied.

"Right."

"Which is why," Hawkeye looked from one to the other, "you need someone there who is thinking with a rational part of their anatomy. Between you and Jean, and especially Al at the moment, there's not a single rational thought in your…brains. So I'm com – I mean, I'll be there." She fixed those wide, bright eyes on Roy's face, positively daring him to contradict her. At her side, Havoc stifled a high-pitched giggle, at the word she'd almost said.

Roy hated to think she was right, but…well…dammit, he thought, glaring at Havoc, she was right. He pursed his lips and agreed with a resigned nod. "Yes, mom," he answered sourly.

The day's work was nothing but a blur. Roy made a genuine attempt to concentrate on business, but all he could think about was the impending chat with Al later today, which he feared might become unpleasant. The kid had been smiling and cheerful last night as he gave his housemate the brief account of what he had done to himself. But as he dismissed the subject, heading upstairs to bed, there had been a hint of warning in his grey eyes before he turned away. He now considered the subject closed, and was not going to welcome today's delegation. He did have his own streak of that Elric stubbornness, after all.

The one occasion on which Roy managed to concentrate rather intently during the day was when burly General Schmidt stormed into the office, his broad, craggy face suffused with anger, demanding to know why their meeting had been so abruptly cancelled this morning. Roy tried to deflect his ire with smooth replies and deference, and a little charm thrown in, but the General wasn't having any of it. Finally Hawkeye stepped in, and calmly wove a story about getting a phone call from East City involving some little crisis requiring Mustang's intimate knowledge of the region. By the time she was done, Schmidt was not only mollified, but ready to commend Roy for leaping immediately into the fray.

As the big man left the office and closed the door behind him, leaving an almost visible empty space where he'd been standing, Roy reached for the phone, smiling wryly at Hawkeye. "Guess I'd better call General Grumman so he can corroborate the story if he's asked."

"Yes, do that," Hawkeye nodded, a mischievous glint in her eye. "He likes to have some forewarning when he has to act as our alibi."

"What would I do without you?"

"You'd collapse, of course."

Meanwhile, on the odd occasion when Roy poked his head into the outer office during the day, he noticed Havoc and Breda huddled together at one or the other of their desks, busily stuffing things into brown envelopes and muttering in Hawkeye's general direction. That, at least, kept him entertained.

But at last, as the afternoon dragged on, he couldn't stand the waiting any longer. He stepped into the main office, carrying a couple of files and locking his door behind him. "Lieutenant Hawkeye," he said briskly, "we have an appointment we'd better keep, remember?" She raised her eyebrows at him – it was only 2:30 – but nodded wordlessly and began putting her own papers away in her desk.

There was time to stop in at her place so she could change into civilian clothes, since they both agreed it would be best to approach Al in as casual a manner as possible. Roy paced out his agitation in Riza's immaculately tidy living room, scowling as he tried to plot how they'd broach today's delicate subject with his young ward when Al returned from his seminar. He peered out the living room window to the flower-lined front walk two levels below in front of the building, then paced the room again and paused at the plant stand near the short hallway leading from the room. He examined without seeing the well-watered, healthy houseplants Riza had cultivated since she'd moved in. Finally, glancing impatiently down the hall, he saw the bedroom door pushed slightly ajar, and inside, just visible in the shadows, caught sight of a bare shoulder as his lieutenant shed her military issue shirt and bent to pick up a more casual blouse.

Roy froze in his tracks. He'd seen her bare shoulder before – seen her entire naked back, in fact, before he'd disfigured it so the array on her skin would be unusable by any other person hoping to learn flame alchemy. He couldn't see the scarring from here – couldn't really _see_ her back and shoulder at all, perceiving merely the tantalizing shape and outline. But imagination and memory supplied the images as he watched her movements through the narrow opening, his breath coming quick and hard: the softness of her skin…the curve of the shoulder that had once fit perfectly into his hand…the firmness of the muscle across her shoulder blades as he'd laid his palm and fingers on it…

Damn. Riza pulled the door open, fastening the top button on a fresh blue blouse, and Roy whirled away, clutching his files at waist level to hide his body's reaction to the erotic recollections. Fighting for control, he suppressed another gasping breath, cursing himself for letting his thoughts wander that way, especially under today's circumstances. This was the last thing he needed to deal with right now.

Or to have Riza see!

He took a long, slow breath, forcing himself back into a normal rhythm, summoning his usual tactic for controlling an inconvenient arousal: he began to construct complicated alchemy arrays in his mind. That always did the trick, almost immediately. While his brain found such things utterly compelling, other parts of his anatomy got bored very easily, and generally went back to sleep.

"Ready to go, sir?" Hawkeye inquired. She stood with the front door half open, casting an inquiring glance back at him.

He turned, maintaining the careful positioning of the files in front of him. Already things were calming down, but he didn't want to take any chances. "Yes, let's go, lieutenant," he responded with a crisp nod, and proceeded past her out the door. By the time he climbed into the car, his involuntary ardour had cooled, though he had to be careful not to watch Hawkeye too closely as she drove; things still felt rather inclined to get…frisky.

Instead he turned his attention to the upcoming talk with Alphonse, and that finally cooled things down permanently, despite the related subject matter. He was _really_ not looking forward to this, even if he had Riza as moral support.

Once at home, he had plenty of time to change out of his own uniform, coming back downstairs in slacks and shirt to find that Riza had the kettle on the stove and the teapot on the counter. Beyond the stove, light streamed in from the afternoon sunlight currently bathing the garden. "I was thinking of a drink," Roy remarked, grabbing the opened wine bottle from last night and reaching into his cupboard for a glass, "but tea wasn't what I had in mind."

She stopped him with a firm hand on his wrist. "That's not a good idea," she admonished quietly. "You need to keep a clear head."

"On the contrary, lieutenant," he muttered, "I'm beginning to think the best way to approach this is to get thoroughly drunk first."

But the chance suddenly vanished, with the sound of the front door opening. Their eyes met. Roy quietly replaced the glass in the cupboard.

By the time Alphonse had dashed up the hall stairs, dropped his books on his desk, rearranged himself in various ways and come downstairs again, the two adults had poured both him and themselves a cup of tea, and awaited him at the table.

He paused in the doorway, face lighting up. "Hi, Riza. Roy, what are doing home so early? This is a nice surprise."

For a moment Roy couldn't reply, just admiring the boy's fine, strong, healthy figure in the doorway. He'd come so far since those early days of weakness. Roy allowed himself a brief moment of pleasure and warmth, just thinking of it.

"Oh, we just wanted to get away, it was so stuffy at the office," he finally made an evasive reply, ignoring Riza's reproachful glance across the table. Best to work up to this as gradually as possible. He pulled out the chair beside him, sliding the boy's teacup over as he approached and sat down. "So tell us about your day, Alphonse. How did the seminar go this afternoon?"

Al took a sip of the warm liquid, closing his eyes and savouring it with pleasure as it went down. For extra measure, as he always did, he took a deep breath to fill himself with the spicy aroma. Riza had chosen one of the Xingian teas. "This is so good," he said, then smiled as he cradled the cup, steam curling up between his hands. "The seminar was very interesting. We've been learning about the circulatory system for a couple of weeks, and today we talked about the heart itself. I'm really enjoying it."

"Are you getting any hands on experience yet?" Riza wondered, stirring cream into her own cup, the spoon tinkling against the porcelain.

"Not really; we're just getting started, so we don't qualify for hospital rounds. Though Doctor Yuen promised he's going to bring someone in to do a demonstration. I'm not sure what a person could demonstrate about the circulation system, though. It's not like they can pull their skin off to show us the veins or anything."

"There are some things you could demonstrate, I suppose," Roy mused. "How to do tourniquets, for example."

"Well, we could do those on each other," Al reminded him. "So I think Yuen has something else in mind. We'll see."

Riza set her spoon on the saucer and ran an idle finger around the rim of her cup, studying the ripples on the surface of her tea. "Tell me, Alphonse," she said quietly, "as you've been looking at the circulatory system, did you by any chance study its role in certain functions of the male reproductive system?"

Al froze, cup halfway to his mouth. He stared across the table at the woman for a long, tense moment before lowering his gaze and setting the cup carefully back into its saucer.

Dammit, Roy thought. She shouldn't have sprung it on them without warning_._ He wasn't at all surprised when the boy flashed him a glance full of accusation. "Not fair, Roy," Al said quietly. "I don't like being ambushed."

In one sharp, scraping movement he pushed his chair back, and had half risen from it when Roy gripped his arm. "Al – stay here," the man urged. "We have to talk about this."

"Maybe you have to talk," the young man answered tightly, "but I don't."

"Yes you do. We can't just leave it like this."

"If you want to talk so much, you can talk to Riza. You've already been doing that anyway." Al turned a very definite Elric glare on his housemate, and Roy's heart sank. This was not going to go well, was it? "Why can't you just mind your own business, Roy?" The young man jerked himself free of the elder's grip, and got to his feet.

The two adults followed suit, standing shoulder to shoulder, Roy thought bitterly, like some kind of military interrogation.

Well, they had to soldier on. "Like it or not, kiddo," Roy reminded his young friend, "this _is_ my business. I'm your legal guardian, and I can't just let you do something to mutilate yourself."

"Who said anything about 'mutilation'?" Al retorted in exasperation. "I'm perfectly fine. I just stopped things where they were, that's all."

"You're deliberately preventing yourself from developing normally. In my book, that's mutilation. It's interference with nature."

The kid actually rolled his eyes, making Roy want to grind his teeth. "Doctors interfere with nature all the time. It's what they do," the boy explained in an exaggeratedly patient tone that his brother would have recognized instantly.

"But only when there's a good reason, like illness or injury. You're preventing something that's _healthy_."

"It is _not_ heal – " Al broke off and turned away, jaw set.

Roy greeted that outburst with raised eyebrows, but before he could even begin to digest the implication that going through puberty wasn't healthy, Riza interjected, "Alphonse, can you at least explain the reason why you did this?"

"Why should I?" the boy grumbled. "If it's none of Roy's business, it definitely isn't yours. He should have kept his mouth shut."

"On the contrary," she responded, unperturbed, "if you're doing harm to yourself, I'd say it's the business of everyone who cares about you. And we're going to keep asking questions until we understand why you did this."

Al backed against the counter near the stove, crossing his arms over his chest. The sunlight streaked across from the window, brightly illuminating him – in a bizarre fashion, all things considered – from the waist down. "I'm not doing any harm," he insisted, drawing Roy's eyes upward again, to his tight jaw and resentful grey eyes.

Roy just couldn't encompass that thought. Resolutely shoving aside a brief memory of Havoc crossing his legs under the diner table, he demanded, "How can you even say you're not doing harm, Al? You're interfering with your body's natural, healthy processes. You're preventing yourself from growing up properly. You're tampering with – you're actually daring to do harm to – " He couldn't even bring himself to utter the words, and once again his eyes fell, to rest on the boy's unfortunately lit lower limbs. Where no natural, male reaction would ever take place again, if the kid had his way.

This really was pathetic, Roy thought, and he himself was more pathetic than anyone. Swallowing his instinctive horror and trying to keep his eyes focussed where they should be, he finished lamely, "Well, you're shutting down something that's pretty fundamental. An awfully important part of a man's anatomy. I'd say that's pretty harmful."

"But it's my own body. I can do what I want with it." And every line of the young man's body – upper and lower – rigidly reinforced his stubborn assertion, from the clenched fists and tightly crossed arms, to the defiant lift of his chin, to the challenge in his dark eyes.

Dammit – he still looked so young. Roy thought, fleetingly, how much he'd wanted to keep the kid that way, just a little longer. He'd loved being the strong guardian, sheltering the youngster through all the difficulties of getting used to the world again.

"But – but – how can you possibly _want_ to keep yourself from growing up and enjoying the company of women?" Roy knew he'd begun to sound like Havoc, but he couldn't help himself. This was something far beyond what he could imagine a man doing to himself. He added, as another thought occurred to him. "Or men, if that's the way you lean. Is that what's going on, Al?"

"No, I'm not interested in men that way. I'd never do this just because of that. And anyway, I can enjoy the company of both of them, without having all that other mess interfering. In fact – " now Al averted his gaze " – I can probably enjoy them better without it getting in the way."

"But think of it," Roy tried to press his point. "I mean, really think. You're only seventeen. How can you possibly decide that you want to live without a loving companion for the entire rest of your life? It's not normal for a man to expect to do that."

"Why not?" Al shot back. "_You_ do."

Which stopped Roy dead in his tracks. Damn him, the kid was clever. Mind racing, the older man hunted for a good explanation of his own choices. He didn't dare look at Riza after that low blow. "That…that's different and you know it," was all he managed. Brilliant, he thought in self-derision. That would convince him for sure.

"Alphonse," Riza stepped into the fray again. "You talked about puberty as a 'mess'. What did you mean?"

Bless her, thought Roy, as he watched the colour creep into the boy's cheeks, and saw the way he shifted uncomfortably. Maybe she was on to something here.

"Well…" It was Al's turn to falter evasively, sounding more like himself and less like Ed. "It…it just is. It's so…messy. It interferes with everything. It…"

"How does it interfere?"

The boy flashed the woman an incredulous glance, as though he couldn't believe she even needed to ask. He looked ready to bolt the room at any moment. "I…It…the way you…respond…when you see a girl…"

Riza and Jean had been right all along, Roy realized bleakly. It had been happening right under his nose, and he hadn't wanted to see it. So poor Al had been introduced to this daunting physical experience – probably the most overwhelming experience of them all, in the months since he'd returned to his body – all by himself. While his guardian squeamishly turned a blind eye and gave him no adult help whatsoever.

Well, that had to change, and quickly. "It's okay, Al," Roy said softly. "I should have talked to you about that; it's my fault for not realizing. I know it's strange when that starts happening, even when you expect it."

"It's not strange," Al muttered, hair falling over his eyes as he lowered his head. "It's disgusting."

"It can be inconvenient, I know, but – "

"It's not just inconvenient!" the boy burst out. His cheeks were positively flaming now, and he couldn't seem to lift his eyes from the floor. "It's disgusting. It – it's disrespectful. To have a girl talking to you about something important, and all you can do is think about – about _that_ – and react like that – it's disrespectful. No wonder girls get so upset about it."

"It doesn't have to be disgusting," Roy assured him. "Once you learn to control it, and you get used to things, it can be managed. And Al," he added gently, "girls don't always get upset, believe me. In the right situation, when your body reacts like that to a woman, it can be the highest possible sign of respect. And the woman even welcomes it."

And suddenly, without warning, Al looked up, a spark of anger igniting in his grey eyes as he launched his deadliest counterattack. "Oh really," he said sarcastically. "So I suppose Riza welcomes it every time you react like that when you look at _her._" With a final glare of derision, he escaped at last, stomping out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Leaving Roy and Riza standing stiffly side by side in the kitchen, not looking at each other.


	3. A lot of work for a Little Chat

_A lot of Work for a Little Chat_

Roy inched cautiously forward and leaned ever-so-slowly toward the corner of the bookcase, inclining his head until a single narrowed eye peered past the edge. He'd chosen his spot perfectly: the table of students was clearly visible in an open space between two tall banks of books, beside the window overlooking the wide library steps on the street three floors below. He could feel Havoc's weight against his arm as the other man followed his lead, peeking cautiously over his superior's shoulder to view the table. Fortunately, the way the light angled in through the window, even if any of the students glanced their way, the two of them in their dark blue uniforms would be hard to see in the murky shadow in which their bookcase stood.

Alphonse sat on the near side of the table, his back to the two military men, with four other students from Dr. Yuen's class ranging beside and across from him. The two young women and three young men had strewn their books all over the table's surface, and now conferred quietly with each other, writing busily in their notebooks as they worked on a set of problems their teacher had assigned them.

Roy immediately recognized Fletcher Tringham sitting directly across the table from Al, frowning in concentration as he held the pages of a book down with one hand and gripped a pencil in the other, gnawing absently at its tip. The youngster had become Al's good friend in recent months, and now appeared at the house as often as Riza and Jean did. He and his older brother, Russell, had spent a lot of years wandering, the way Edward and Alphonse had once done. But thanks to some of Roy's manipulations behind the scenes, the two seemed to be settling down at last, sharing rooms in a boarding house near Gracia's place. Russell had in fact taken the job in Gracia's flower shop that Al hadn't been able to handle, and Fletcher had recently joined his friend as a student of Dr. Yuen.

As far as the boy knew, the medical school had offered him a scholarship to study in Dr. Yuen's class, and Roy was content to let him believe that. He smiled briefly as he watched Fletcher scribbling in his notebook, then pulled his head back as the youngster looked up.

"Ouch!" Havoc squawked.

Roy grimaced at the bang to his head, and glanced over his shoulder to find his lieutenant rubbing a cheekbone. "Be quiet!" Roy hissed. "Do you want them to hear us?"

"Well, you could've warned me you were going to step back," Havoc complained.

"Fletcher looked up, and I thought he might see me. There wasn't time. Just keep it down, all right?"

"All right, all right. What are we looking for, anyway?"

"I don't really know." Roy risked another quick glance, enough to see Fletcher whispering across the table to Al, whereupon the two boys dissolved into soft laughter. One of the girls, sitting at the end of the table between the two, smiled at the joke, then leaned back over her books, long black hair trailing over one shoulder and wisping across her notes. Roy pulled back again, more cautiously, but Havoc was standing clear this time.

"I wonder…," Havoc mused.

"What?"

"Did you see how that girl was looking at Al? The one between him and Fletcher?"

"No, I was watching Fletcher. What was she doing?"

Havoc's teeth showed in the shadows. "She was looking at him…you know. Like _that_. She was liking what she saw, let's say."

"Really?" Roy peeked again, in time to see the girl cast a bright glance in his ward's direction, flipping her hair back over her shoulder. He recognized the classic gesture, and pulled back around the bookcase, leaning against it. "Well I'll be…," he murmured.

"You saw?"

"Yes. I think you're right. She's attracted to him."

"Could you tell if Alphonse noticed?"

Roy shook his head. "Not really, but I doubt it. I wonder if she's the one…"

"The one he…reacted to?"

"Yes. Of course, there's no way we can know now, because he's not going to be reacting like that any longer."

Havoc shook his head. "It just makes no sense to me. I can't believe it – that he wouldn't feel _something_ when he looks at a dark, ripe, scrumptious little beauty like that – what?" he broke off, sensing Roy's eyes boring into him in the shadows.

"First," Roy answered tersely, "we've established that he _can't_ respond like that now, no matter how far beyond your own imagination that is. Second – you do realize that the girl is about half your age, right?"

It was, naturally, too dark behind the bookcase to see the red creeping up Havoc's cheeks. But Roy had seen it happen so often that he could easily fill in the blanks. Havoc ducked his head, averting his face and muttering, "Right, right, don't get touchy, of course I know that. I was just making an observation, that's all."

"Uh huh." Roy ventured another quick peek around the edge of the bookcase, then returned to position, having made a decision. "Listen, Jean, I just got an idea. Keep next weekend open, okay? I think I'm going to throw a little party. For Alphonse and a few kids in his class."

* * * * *

In the end, the guest list was rather longer than he'd originally planned. Roy's "little party" turned into an afternoon full-backyard affair, with all eleven of Al's classmates invited, as well as Russell Tringham, since Roy wouldn't have dreamed of having Fletcher over and leaving his older brother out. He'd planned on having Riza there, as always, and then thought it best to invite Gracia too. Which also meant Elysia, with permission to bring two of her own friends from school.

And then somehow his entire office staff became included. And Fuery and Falman planned to bring dates. Before everything was done, the evening dinner party he'd envisioned, with maybe eight or ten people, had mushroomed into a big cookout in the backyard, with at least twenty-six.

All of this, just so he would have an excuse to invite Dr. Yuen to the house, without Al being suspicious about why Roy wanted to chat with his teacher.

And Al truly suspected nothing; he still hadn't quite gotten used to how devious Roy could be when he really wanted to. Ed would have seen right through him immediately.

But Al merely laughed as the numbers piled up, and offered the obvious solution: "I'll create a temporary fire pit in the yard, and we can get people to bring enough meat and side dishes for a cookout. All you have to bring," he'd added with an impish grin, "is the fire. And when we're finished, I'll close over the fire pit, and Russell and Fletcher can replant the grass."

Which was pretty close to how it all transpired. Al had created the fire pit around noon, when everyone started arriving with the food. The sun was high in the cloudless sky, a very light breeze helping to keep the yard from getting too hot. Alphonse lined the pit with brick, and then Russell and Fletcher transmuted some materials to use for fuel. It wasn't hard for them to take their usual plant-oriented alchemy a little farther than usual, creating charcoal that would burn slowly and maintain a steady heat. After Roy had lit it, Al created metal bars that stretched over the pit, to act as a grill.

By the time all this was underway, most of the other young people had arrived, and they gathered around the pit, watching the four alchemists work, and generally oohing and ahhing. Roy noticed that Lisa, the black-haired girl, was especially enthralled, watching with rapt attention as Al did his work. And Al, of course, simply thought she was interested in the alchemy.

Jean touched Roy's shoulder and jerked his head toward the house, drawing his friend toward the large wooden deck and away from the side of the yard where the three younger alchemists stood explaining to their attentive audience exactly what they had done. "I saw you watching that girl – Lisa," Jean remarked.

Roy stood, hands in pockets, still surveying the chattering group a few feet away in the midday sun. "Yes," he nodded. "She's pretty interested in whatever Al's doing, isn't she?"

"Yes, but you didn't notice what else was going on."

Roy looked at him. "What?"

"Fletcher Tringham couldn't take his eyes off her."

Roy closed his own eyes. "Oh, great," he muttered. "Just what we need – a romantic rivalry to complicate things."

"But maybe, if Al doesn't show any real interest, Lisa will turn to Fletcher and there won't even be a problem. He could be a godsend."

"Or maybe she'll keep pursuing Al, and get more and more frustrated, and Fletcher will see that Al's not even acknowledging what's going on, and he'll resent Alphonse for hurting the girl's feelings."

He could feel Havoc's astonished eyes on him. "Boy, Mustang, you really like to borrow trouble before it's happened, don't you?"

"Well, you were the one who told me about Fletcher."

"What about Fletcher?" came a sharp voice from the deck stairs behind them.

The two of them turned to discover Russell Tringham descending the painted wooden stairs, carrying a foil-covered platter and a couple of long forks. The pinched frown that had become his standard expression through the years of wandering with his brother had relaxed, in recent months, almost to a smile. But the frown had returned now, brows drawn together under his shock of blond hair. "What were you saying about my brother?" he demanded, halting between the two men.

He was only about an inch shorter than Roy, so they stood very nearly eye-to-eye. Roy decided that partial honesty was the best policy, to try to prevent Russell's touchiness blowing up on him later. "We were just noticing," he drawled casually, "that Fletcher seems to be pretty friendly with that black-haired girl. Lisa."

To his relief, Russell's face relaxed, his blue eyes sparking with amusement. "'Friendly'," he repeated with a snort. "Sometimes the kid can't think of anything else. I keep having to remind him to concentrate on homework. And that lasts about ten minutes, before he's off daydreaming again." He shook his head with a fond smile over at his brother, who stood, as always, at Alphonse's shoulder. "I keep forgetting that he's starting to grow up. He's been my little brother for so long that it's kind of weird to think of him becoming a man."

"I know what you mean," Roy muttered.

Jean remarked, "At least you probably have your own experiences to draw on, to help you deal with how your brother is changing."

"Not really," Russell shook his head. "I was so busy trying to keep us both alive, I never had time for girls. So I don't have a clue what he's thinking, half the time."

He was so much like Ed, Roy thought wryly. And here were Alphonse and Fletcher, supposedly being "guided" by a completely inexperienced young man and a more experienced man who nevertheless had already bungled things pretty badly. With this beginning, the kids were probably doomed.

"All right, you three," came Gracia's voice as she emerged from the back door and walked across the deck, bearing another foil-covered platter. "Time to stop being lazy and get the meat cooking. You've got seven growing boys across the yard there, who may cannibalize you if you make them wait too long for lunch."

Roy laughed as she thrust the platter into his hands. "Right, Russell, we've been given our marching orders, it looks like. You hungry? If we do the cooking, we get first dibs on the steaks."

"Oh good, let's get busy," Russell laughed.

Havoc and Breda had commandeered a small military van and brought some extra chairs as well as folding tables, both to hold the food and for people to sit at. But as the steaks and chops and burgers and foil-wrapped potatoes and other vegetables gradually collected and began to cook over the firepit, and the bowls of salad and potato salad and various side dishes and condiments multiplied on the row of tables in the shade under the trees along one fence, the young people produced three large blankets and spread them out on the lawn near the herb beds on the other side of the yard.

Al moved to the firepit and watched as Roy dug a fork into a couple of steaks and expertly flipped them, to the accompaniment of a satisfying sizzle and a brief surge of flame in the pit. "I see you're just going to ignore the tables and chairs after we got them for you," Roy commented as he felt the youngster lean heavily on his shoulder.

Across the pit from him, Riza had taken over from Russell when the other young people drew him away. She knelt by the grill, giving a row of baking potatoes a quick turn with a long pair of tongs. On the other side of the yard, the young students chattered and laughed like a flock of jays, while Roy's other subordinates and their dates talked in only slightly less raucous fashion near the tables, nursing mugs of beer. Elysia and the two other young girls appeared to be playing a shrieking game of tag among the bushes along the back fence, behind the garden.

"We're spry enough to sit on the ground," Alphonse quipped. "We'll leave the chairs to the old people. You – I mean _they_ – are a lot stiffer."

Riza looked up and laughed. "Well, Roy, are you going to sit still for that?"

But as Roy opened his mouth to make a humorous retort, Lisa stepped up to join her fellow student, slipping an arm through his as he straightened to greet her. "So this is where you've gotten to," she smiled, her dark brown eyes warm on Al's face.

She'd pulled her hair up for the party, into a high, bouncing pony tail that made her look, as Havoc might have said, "cute as a button." It was a warm day, so she'd dressed in a sleeveless top that was tight enough to leave not very much to the imagination. And her comfortable shorts were perhaps a little more short than Roy would have preferred. She had very shapely legs.

He began reciting alchemic equations to himself, gluing his eyes to the girl's face and refusing to allow them to inch further south. _Half my age, half my age_, he chanted with grim determination, between equations.

Al regarded the girl with a friendly smile, completely oblivious to her physical charms. "I was just telling Roy," he said, "that we're sitting on the blankets so the stiff old people can have the chairs."

"Now, that's not very nice, is it? I may have to punish you," chided the girl, lower lip pouting just slightly.

Damn, she was good, Roy thought.

Riza shot the two young people a smug smile across the pit. "Don't worry about that," she remarked. "Next time Alphonse and I spar in the gym, he'll have a clearer idea of who is the more fit."

Al laughed in rueful acknowledgement, as Lisa said, "Spar in the gym – then you must be Riza Hawkeye?" As the woman nodded, she went on, "Al talks about you a lot. He really enjoys working out in the gym with you. So you're General Mustang's girlfriend – I always pictured you with darker hair, I don't know why."

Roy's head jerked up. "My girlf – where did you – Al – "

Al put an arm around Lisa's shoulders and turned her back toward the blankets. "We shouldn't bother them while they're working," he said quickly. "Let's go back to the others. We can talk later." But as he guided the girl away from the fire pit, he glanced with a grin back over his shoulder, before sticking out his tongue.

"Still getting even with us, I see," Roy muttered, hunching over the steaks.

"He can be quite a brat when he puts his mind to it," Riza commented, unable to keep a tinge of admiration out of her voice. "I never quite expected that with him." She used the back of her hand to push a stray lock of hair behind one ear.

"He's an Elric, so it's bound to slip out now and then. But look," Roy glanced up to see another man approaching the fire pit, "here's Dr. Yuen. Just the man I've been waiting for." And he stood up to greet the newcomer.

Dr. Yuen had abandoned his usual modified version of Xing dress, the red, high-collared long-sleeved jacket he wore when conducting his seminar. Today he had changed into black trousers and a simple high-collared white shirt, his long black braid hanging down his back almost to the waist. He bowed in greeting, and Roy returned the bow, looking into a pair of eyes much like his own.

"I'm so glad you could come, doctor," Roy said.

"It is my pleasure," returned the doctor. "The nice lady in the kitchen told me I should bring these to you." He held out a couple of packets of fish.

"I thought you might prefer fish, so I had some ready in the icebox just in case. But I'll be happy to cook these for you."

Gracia had followed the doctor from the house, carrying a wicker basket. "If you'd like to come with me, Dr. Yuen," she said, "the drinks table is over here. And I've brought some buns to tide over our ravenous students. Are you and Riza almost done, Roy?"

"Almost," he nodded briskly, kneeling back at the pit and unwrapping the fish. "Give us just a couple of minutes more. Have them start loading their plates with everything else, and by the time they get to us, we'll be ready."

As Gracia led the doctor over to introduce him to Havoc, Breda, and the others, Riza smiled across the fire pit at Roy, a trace of malicious enjoyment in her eyes. "So," she said brightly, "Lisa is very pretty. Isn't she, sir?"

Roy rolled his eyes, gritting his teeth. "Not you too. What are you and Jean, a tag team or something?" He bent over the fish beginning to sizzle on the grill, then cast his subordinate a sidelong glance. "You know," he said softly, "I may just have to punish you."

Riza snorted. "You behave like an adolescent half the time already, Roy, but 'adolescent girl' is new, even for you." She laughed across the pit at him, but as he continued looking intently at her, saying nothing, her mirth faded and she lowered her eyes, her cheeks maybe taking on the slightest tinge of pink.

And she, thought Roy to himself, is _just_ my age…

The first young people had already filled their plates with side dishes, and were beginning to advance toward the pit. Time to get back to the business at hand.

He'd tried to learn all the kids' names, but it was hard to keep track of them. He remembered that these first two – the white-blond young man and his brown-haired friend – were Erik and Lee. The blond one seemed to be the joker between the two, almost making his friend drop his plate. Roy took a firm grip on Lee's shaky plate to keep it steady as he plopped a steak onto it, then lifted another onto Erik's plate.

He'd been working with one hand gloved, just to make sure he could handle things if something untoward happened with the fire pit and grease from the meat. But now he snapped surreptitiously and made a little flame erupt from Erik's steak as he leaned over it.

The kid jerked back in surprise and his whole plate would have gone flying if Roy hadn't grabbed it. "Let me help with that," he said mildly.

Erik steadied himself and flashed a grin at the man. Obviously he had a good idea where the unexpected flare had come from. "Good one," he laughed.

Next came a couple of the girls, accompanied, to Roy's surprise, by Russell Tringham, who seemed to be enjoying the particular company of one of them: a petite, olive-skinned girl with captivating dark eyes that looked as though they were lined with kohl. Roy couldn't for the life of him remember her name. But he raised an amused eyebrow at Russell as he dished out a large steak, and the young man laughed sheepishly, his cheeks colouring. After today, he might just understand young Fletcher a bit better, it seemed.

When Al came along he was trailed, as always, by Lisa and by Fletcher himself. As the three of them stood waiting for their steaks to be ready, Roy looked up at Alphonse and they shared a smile. The kid looked so happy, as he leaned close to the grill and breathed deeply, eyes closed, to savour the aroma of the cooked meat. Roy couldn't help a little burst of pride at the sight of him, surrounded by friends, studying something he loved, planning to make a big difference in the world. He'd come such a long way since those first weeks after he'd gotten his body back, when he'd been so frail and shaky. That other little matter – well, it wasn't forgotten, of course, but Roy was determined to enjoy the afternoon and try not to think of it until later, when hopefully he could manage to have a private word with Yuen in the house.

It did give him pause, though, to realize that young Fletcher had grown so much in the last five months that he and Al were now the same height. They actually looked very much alike, when you saw them side-by-side, though Fletcher's hair was a bit darker. And his voice kept cracking, and Roy swore he could see some peach fuzz on the kid's chin.

With a little pang of distress, the man jabbed a fork into a steak and lifted it onto one of the out-held plates, blocking the thought out of his mind.

Eventually everyone had their plates full, and returned to their blankets or chairs. But even with that clear divide between older and younger people, there was a lot of interaction. Falman's date (a tall, statuesque beauty with the improbable name of Lulu), seemed to be very knowledgeable about fashion, and before long most of the female students were tossing questions to her and discussing clothes.

The male students, meanwhile, talked for a while with some of the other adults, about what it was like to be part of the military. Roy could see Gracia and others being left out, so he gradually steered the conversation more toward the students' medical studies. Al could see what he was doing, and helped out, again sharing a smile with his housemate. They made a good team, when the need arose.

"Be sure to have seconds if you want them." Roy waved vaguely toward the tables of food. "There's still plenty of almost everything."

"How about the steaks?" Erik grinned from the middle blanket, where he already leaned back, propped up by his hands behind him, having finished his plate.

"If you're still starving, we do have a few more in the icebox. But they're a last resort, if you're still hungry after finishing everything else."

"And don't forget," Gracia put in, "there's strawberries and ice cream afterward."

"Ice cream!" Elysia yelled from her own spot on the blanket beside Al. She sat cross-legged, facing her two friends, who squealed along with her in delight.

Al told his young admirer and her companions, "If you all finish what's on your plates, we'll go in and get the ice cream when you're done, okay?"

"Can't we go now?" asked one of the little girls.

But Elysia said firmly, "No, we have to finish eating first. Al said so. So let's eat!"

Lee grinned over at Al, "You're a big hero now, Elric. You know how to wrap the girls around your little finger, don't you?"

"Just be a pal, Lee, that's all you need to do," Alphonse smiled.

"You're not my pal," Elysia told him earnestly, brown pigtails swinging as she turned to look up at the young man. "You're my big brother."

At the familiar phrase, Roy saw the flash of distress in Al's eyes, suppressed so quickly it might almost not have happened at all. But he'd been watching, and knew the kid's expressions so well that it was unmistakable. Al covered himself right away, smiling at the girl and giving one of those pigtails a little yank, saying, "Okay, but this is what big brothers do." And Roy turned away.

To find Dr. Yuen watching his student with attentive eyes, from his seat at the next table, with Gracia and Fuery and his date. So the doctor could tell when Alphonse was troubled and trying to cover it up. Roy wondered what else he might have detected recently, where Al was concerned. They really needed to have that little talk.

The chatter and laughter back and forth between the blankets and the chairs continued and grew louder as people gradually finished their meals and got to the "picking" stage of things. A few got up and added more food to their plates, but the eating was slow while the conversation sped up. The sun was still high, sharpening every blade of grass and lending a glow to the bright faces of the young people. Roy leaned back in his chair, legs outstretched and ankles crossed, and just watched for a while. His own men might be older than the students, but they were uncommonly young at heart, and the two groups mingled very well.

Presently, Alphonse got to his feet and reached a hand down to help Elysia get up. "All right," he announced, "time to get that ice cream. Come on, all three of you, and we'll bring out the bowls and spoons too."

"Yay! Ice cream!" Elysia cried, dancing across the grass beside her hero, holding his hand, as her two young friends followed.

Lisa remained behind, watching them go, and something about her expression, some element of speculation in her eyes, made Roy wonder if she was starting to catch on to the fact that Al would not be returning her affections in quite the way she hoped. The man felt sorry for her, wishing he could somehow help her understand that the problem didn't rest with her. But of course, he couldn't possibly say anything.

Falman and Lulu, meanwhile, began to collect the plates and cutlery, and as they took those into the house, they crossed paths with Alphonse and the girls coming back out. Elysia proudly carried the bucket of ice cream, clutching the handle with both hands just under her chin, while one of her friends carried another smaller bucket of cut strawberries, and the other brought all the spoons in a glass jar. Al carried a stack of glass bowls, balanced against his chest with both hands.

Roy dished out the ice cream, standing behind one of the tables as people moved past in a steady line, with Al beside him, spooning strawberries on top.

Havoc had been early in the line, and as he sat at a nearby table, working away at his bowl, he called to Al, "I was talking to your friends about how we spar at the gym, and they were hoping we could demonstrate something for them. What do you say, Alphonse?"

Al dropped a spoonful of berries into Russell's bowl before looking at Havoc. "Sure," he agreed, "that would be fun. We need to work off this food anyway."

The young men were so eager to see the demonstration that they had rolled up one of the blankets and cleared a space on the lawn even before Al and Roy were halfway through their own bowls of ice cream and berries. Al flung an amused glance at the older man, setting his unfinished bowl on the table and stepping into the open space, where Havoc was already unbuttoning his shirt.

Roy sat on his lawn chair between Gracia and Hawkeye, thoughtfully taking another spoon of ice cream as he watched Lisa watching Alphonse while the young man, too, took his shirt off and flung it to one side. With parted lips and indrawn breath the girl took in the broad shoulders, straight back, and firm, well-developed muscles, her dark eyes wide, one hand pressed to the base of her throat as though to emphasize the heavy pulse beating there. She followed Al's movements as he twisted a little and shook his arms to loosen them, the late afternoon sun drawing an almost silver glow from his hair as it drew gold from Havoc's.

The two men crouched and began to circle each other. Havoc was leaner than Al, but equally well-muscled. As he circled around, the scars on his body showed in the sunlight, a shining pink seam down his right side revealing where he'd been caught with a knife in an attack in an alley years ago, and a puckered circle low on the left side of his chest revealing where he'd caught a bullet in Ishbal. The matching circle on his back marked the exit wound.

Soon Havoc lunged forward, and automatically Al stepped aside and flipped up an arm to block the other's progress. Havoc kicked the arm aside with a grunt and spun around, his own arm swinging toward Al's head – only to be blocked by the young man's other arm.

Then Alphonse, in turn, made his own moves, kicking up at Havoc's side, to be blocked by the older man's arm, Havoc spinning again to get out of striking range. The two circled and circled, each seeking an opening, and each taking the occasional chance to lunge, blocked every time. Their breathing became heavier and Havoc's spiky hair, if possible, became even spikier as it stood up from his dampening scalp.

As the two men circled and lunged, the impressed murmurs of the onlookers swelled regularly into excitement, cheering for unusual moves or close calls. The breeze lessened and they began to feel the effects of the sun, beads of sweat breaking out on their foreheads, their limbs gleaming.

Al kicked toward Havoc's head, and the man was forced to jerk back at such an angle it was a surprise he didn't fall. He staggered backward as the medical students cheered loudly for Alphonse to press his advantage. The military onlookers immediately had their own chance to cheer, though, as Havoc planted one foot and, using Al's forward motion against him, grabbed the boy's forearm and attempted to throw him down. But Al tumbled forward in a somersault, yanking himself out of the man's grasp and springing back to his feet, out of range.

Their moves became faster and faster as the two of them fell into the familiar rhythm from their weekly matches at the gym, fists and arms flying, their legs arcing upward in wide, graceful kicks, their feet moving nimbly as they danced away from each other's attacks.

At one point, as Al sidestepped one of Havoc's attacks, the older man's leg swept around as he twirled, threatening to cut the young man off at the knees, from behind. But at the last second, Alphonse backflipped neatly over the leg, landing lightly on his feet, knees bent. He grinned at Havoc as they faced each other again, and Havoc laughed back.

The onlookers burst into applause, and Roy couldn't help his inner burst of pride. The boy was so good. And his people had been so diligent, working with him to help build up his strength. Roy was proud of all of them.

And he noted with amusement that just as many of the young ladies (including Lisa) were watching Havoc as were watching Al. That would certainly please his lieutenant. Hawkeye, however, appeared to be watching Roy instead, and smiled with equal pride as he noticed.

After a few more energetic passes, he saw Havoc's eyebrows raised in a question, and Al's brief nod of response. The two lunged simultaneously, each doing a forward flip as he passed the other, and they bounced onto their feet facing the semi-circle of watchers, bowing dramatically as everyone burst once again into wild applause.

Elysia hurled herself across the grass with a squeal, Al's shirt flapping in her hands. He took it from her with a laugh, as Havoc grinned and said, "Hey kiddo, where's mine?"

"She's impossible," Gracia murmured.

"She's just enjoying having a hero," Roy smiled.

"I suppose. But Roy," Gracia frowned, still watching the two of them. "I wonder…do you think Al's looking a bit tired?" In the chair beyond her, Doctor Yuen's head turned.

Roy set his bowl on the table behind him and leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he observed the young man. Al had draped the shirt over his shoulders, using one sleeve to wipe his face. He chatted with the students who had now surrounded him, and seemed quite relaxed after his exertions a few moments before. His colour was a bit high, but surely that was to be expected after even as brief an exercise as this had been? He worked much harder and longer in one of his usual sessions in the gym, after all. And anyway – it was quite warm out here.

"I think he's all right," Roy murmured.

Al broke away from the milling group, returning toward the table to retrieve his dessert, flashing Roy a wide smile as he passed the lawn chairs. Picking up the bowl, he bent to fish for a strawberry in the pool of half-melted ice cream.

"Hey!" came a voice from across the yard. "Come here for a minute, little brother!"

Al's head jerked up as he gasped, turning quickly toward the voice. Immediately he realized his mistake, as he watched Fletcher weave his way among the people, walking across the grass toward Russell. Dropping his bowl and spoon to the grass from suddenly nerveless fingers, Alphonse backed up one step and banged into the table behind him, before turning to stumble away from the scene. He staggered, almost unnoticed, toward the deck, where he fumbled his way up the steps.

Roy was already on his feet, casting a glance at Hawkeye as she rose beside him. She nodded briskly. No one else would go into the house for the next few minutes.

By now, the back door had closed. Roy took the steps two at a time, flinging the door open and plunging into the kitchen. Al stood by the counter near the sink, but turned quickly as Roy came in, the red flush on his cheeks glaring against the sudden pallor of his skin. The shirt slipped unnoticed from his shoulders as, with a little groan, he collapsed to his hands and knees on the floor. Immediately little marmalade Edo-kitty trotted into the room and began to rub up against one of Al's forearms, purring.

Roy knelt beside his housemate, setting a gentle hand on his head. "It's all right, Alphonse," he murmured. "Give yourself a minute."

The boy didn't even look up. He only whispered, head hanging, "It's never going to get better. Is it? Not ever."

Roy's pulled Alphonse into his arms, disturbing the cat, who flung him an aggrieved glance and left the room. "It is," the man murmured. "I promise it is. It's been a long day, and things are harder to deal with when you're tired."

"I suppose so," Al nodded against his shoulder, though he didn't sound convinced.

Roy just knelt like that for a few minutes, holding the young man and not speaking. Al felt warm, but he'd just been out in the sun, and had just been sparring. Of course he was going to be warm. Roy waited until he could feel the boy's trembling dissipate and his breathing become more even, then finally suggested, "You need to go upstairs and sleep."

That brought Al's head up, and he sat back on his haunches, rubbing his face with the heels of both hands. "I can't leave the party. It would be rude."

"Not at all. They know your history, and that you get tired sometimes. Everyone would understand. And," Roy cocked his head as a round of loud laughter burst into the kitchen through the window, "does it sound like they're going to be really upset with you if you need to rest? I think they'll manage."

Al glanced at the bright rectangle of the window in its frame of yellow curtains, and sighed. "I suppose I could nap for a few minutes. Sorry I made a scene."

"Alphonse. You didn't make a scene. If anyone noticed you, they probably thought you were coming back in to get something."

One side of the boy's mouth turned up. "_You_ noticed," he reminded his housemate.

"That's different. I always notice," Roy smiled. "Now. Let's get you upstairs."

It was a measure of how exhausted Al suddenly was that he made no more protest, but allowed the older man to help him to his feet and walk him upstairs. Roy wryly remembered when he'd first gotten his body back, how it had been possible to carry him up. That could never happen now, so much muscle had the young man gained in the intervening months. But Roy could at least offer him an arm around his shoulders as he trudged up the steps.

This was only a little tiredness. It didn't have any connection to the other thing. Surely…?

Al flung himself on his bed, and by the time Roy had drawn a light blanket over him, he was already asleep. The calico cat, Maesy, hopped lightly onto the bed and stepped delicately onto the boy's chest, kneading briefly before turning around twice and settling there to nap with him. Edo followed almost immediately, taking his accustomed place, propping himself to sleep against Al's side. The young man's hand moved automatically, coming to rest on the little cat's back.

Just tired, Roy thought. That was all.

But his doubts returned in full force as he descended the stairs and returned to the kitchen to find Dr. Yuen standing there waiting for him. The man regarded him in silence for a long moment, Roy hesitating in the doorway and hoping with a suddenly pounding heart both that he wouldn't speak, and that he would.

"He is sleeping?" asked the doctor finally.

"Yes."

"He is not well," said the man. It wasn't clear if he meant it as a statement or a question, but Roy realized that it didn't matter either way.

He sagged against the door frame, his shoulders slumping. "I think," he said, "that it's time you and I took a walk around the block and had a little talk."


	4. Tantrum Time

_Tantrum Time_

Roy stretched out his legs and pulled the ottoman a little closer with the heels of his feet. Setting the book back onto his lap and holding it there with one hand, he reached absently for his cup with the other, and took a sip of tea. The house had settled around him, quiet and dark, beyond the circle of light cast by the lamp on the side table to his left. After putting Al's dinner on a plate and sliding it into the oven to keep it warm, he had settled in for an evening's solitary reading in the living room.

For possibly the hundredth time, he glanced toward the doorway into the hall, then shook his head and re-read a paragraph in the book. For possibly the tenth time.

Al wasn't usually this late getting home, but sometimes he did lose track of time at the library. He and Fletcher were probably buried in books, puzzling over some big medical problem.

Roy's eyes roved sightlessly across the page before him as he thought back to his chat with Dr. Yuen, two days ago at the backyard party. The man had listened mostly in silence as they'd strolled around the block in the sunshine, and Roy had explained what was going on with his young ward. Even after the summary ended, the doctor had walked on without speaking for a while, hands clasped behind his back as he contemplated what he'd been told.

"Do you know why the boy has done this?" he had asked at last.

"I told you," Roy's restless eyes had surveyed the street, taking in a couple of boys in a nearby yard, throwing a ball back and forth. "He's uncomfortable and embarrassed by his physical reactions."

"No," the doctor shook his head. "That is not why."

"What do you mean? Do you know another reason, then?" Roy's heart had sunk in dismay. What else had he missed, that was right in front of him? What other reasons could there be for what Alphonse had done to himself?

"He is very brave," Yuen had chided. "You know this. The discomfort of these physical changes would not be enough by themselves to make him flee in such a way. The other reasons -- his true reasons," said the doctor, "Those are what you must discover."

Roy had run a frustrated hand through his unruly hair. "If his reasons aren't what he says they are…then I have no idea what they could be. Or how I can possibly find out."

"You will find the way," Yuen had smiled. "You love him. You will know. But," he held up a hand, "not yet. I must take the first steps, and then you will finish. After that, we will try to undo what has been done. But wait for me to begin."

"What are you going to do?"

"You will see," the doctor had smiled again, and said nothing more.

So Roy had spent the last two days trying to calm his nerves (those alchemical formulas were coming in handy lately), and waiting for word from the doctor. And wracking his brains trying to imagine how he was ever going to discover what other reasons Al might have had for mutilating himself as he had done. If he knew the boy so well – why had he missed something so important?

It didn't help that Jean kept asking if he'd thought of anything yet – arousing the curiosity of everyone else on the staff. Roy had finally grabbed his arm, dragged him down the hall into an empty office, and threatened that if he didn't keep his mouth shut, he'd be reduced to the same condition Al was in. By much less benign means.

Roy smiled at the recollection, turning the page. But just as he reached again for his teacup, his head jerked up at the sound of footsteps on the front porch, and of a key turning in the lock. Placing a bookmark and closing the book, he set it on the side table as the outer door opened. The floor creaked slightly, with the soft click of the closing door, followed by the heavy thunk of a satchel dropping to the floor. And then nothing.

"Al?" he said, rising and walking toward the dark hallway. "I've got your supper warming in the oven. How was your day?"

No answer. He frowned as he reached the opening and peered into the shadows. The young man's shape outlined itself dimly against the square of grey light from the window set into the door, but his face remained invisible. Roy set a hand on the frame of the doorway and repeated slowly, "Alphonse? Is everything all right? You must be tired. Come and have something to eat."

A single, sharply indrawn breath. "You told him."

Roy's stomach swooped, as though dropping from a great height. The moment was apparently upon him, without warning. Whatever Dr. Yuen had planned, it had clearly now been set in motion. "You will see," the man had said. Well…now they would see, indeed.

He could have played dumb, to buy himself a few more seconds – and undoubtedly earn the contempt of the stiff, motionless figure in the dark hallway. Instead, Roy straightened, as though facing a firing squad. "Ah," he said, pleased at the steadiness of his voice. "Dr. Yuen has talked to you, then."

The outline of the boy remained utterly motionless. After a long pause, "He's done more than that," came the flat response.

"Al…don't be upset with him. I didn't know what else to do. I wanted to talk to a medical person – "

"No you didn't." The flat voice cut him off. "You wanted to find someone who could threaten me when I wouldn't agree with you."

"Threaten?" Roy hesitated, licking his lips. "Al. What did Yuen say to you? I certainly didn't – "

"He's kicked me out of his class."

Roy's breath caught with a painful gasp. "My god. Al, are you sure? You must have misunderstood. I never asked him – "

"Of course I'm sure." The emotionless, clipped recitation in the darkness was rapidly making Roy's spine crawl. His hand twitched, automatically reaching for the non-existent glove in his pocket. The voice came again from that featureless shape. "He told me that if I wouldn't change myself back, then he wouldn't allow me to become a doctor. He waited till everyone else had gone home for the day, and then he ambushed me. He won't let me go back tomorrow. He won't even let me in the seminar room. He's having all my books collected out of my cupboard and sent here by the end of the week."

Roy fought a sudden wave of nausea. Damn the man – what did he think he was doing? Roy had wanted help, and _this_ was what the doctor had done instead?

"Alphonse, I'm sorry. I'll talk to him. This wasn't what I wanted at all, when I told him what was going on."

"Yes it was." For the first time, he could detect the tremble of emotion in that voice, aimed at him in the dark. "This is exactly what you wanted. If you couldn't get your way by yourself, you were going to get it by making someone else attack me instead."

Roy shook his head vehemently. "You have to believe me. I never would have said anything to him if I thought he'd go this far. I just thought Yuen would try to reason with you, that's all."

"He was right about you all along," Al blurted.

Yuen 'was right' about him…? What was that supposed to mean?

"He called you a manipulator," the boy said, "and I thought he was exaggerating."

No. Oh no. Roy's heart sank. Al wasn't talking about Yuen at all any more, was he?

He opened his mouth, but that low, tightly vibrating voice just kept coming at him out of the shadows. "He was right – Ed was right about you all along. I thought he was wrong – I thought you were different – but as soon as I don't do what you want, you start plotting. Just like he said. Just like you always do. He was right about _everything_."

"Al – listen to me – it's not like that – "

"You wouldn't listen – you wouldn't trust me – " At last, seemingly loosed from its restraints, Al's voice began to rise. Roy could just picture him, the patches of colour rising in his cheeks, his jaw setting, the Elric glare beginning to crackle in his eyes. "You wouldn't let me make my own decisions – you had to make sure I'd be forced to do what you wanted, or you'd wreck my life!"

"Alphonse, I would never do that to you," Roy insisted. "Why would I want to wreck your life? I want you to be whole, and healthy. I wouldn't try to hurt you just to get my way. You're the most important person in the world to me – my friend, my little bro – "

"_Don't you dare call me that!_" The outraged shriek hurled itself at Roy like a tidal wave or a wild beast.

Roy cursed himself: of all times for his secret thought to burst out of him. But it was true – he meant it – and now he'd ruined everything by letting himself say it. He stepped forward, lifting his hands. Maybe he could salvage the situation.

"Al," he urged, "just stop for a minute. I'm sorry I said that – but you are important to me. Don't you understand that?" He set his hands on the boy's shoulders.

And was instantly thrust away with such unexpected violence that his shoulder slammed against the wall, sending a jolting pain all down his arm. He pushed himself upright, flexing his hand a couple of times, experimentally.

"Don't touch me!" Al yelled raggedly. "Don't even talk to me! I don't want to hear another word out of your mouth, ever, you liar! I'll never forgive you for this!"

"Al, stop it," Roy gasped. "We have to talk about this – "

"I'm not talking to you any more!" The young man hurtled forward, pushing past his housemate in a rush and flinging himself up into the murk of the stairwell as though chased by a fiend.

Roy leaped after him, his hand stinging as he grabbed the banister. "Al, come back here!" he cried. "You can't run away from everything, you have to deal with it. Stop running!"

Al was nothing but a swift shadow, a dark blur against the dim background. But Roy caught up with him halfway down the hall, clutching at him with uncertain hands. He got hold of Alphonse's arm, and immediately the youngster wheeled around, fighting his grip with the ferocity of a cornered animal. They grappled for a couple of wild moments, their harsh breathing rebounding between the walls as they twisted back and forth. Finally Al's clenched fist slammed against Roy's ear, sending him staggering sideways, his head ringing.

"I never want to talk to you again!" Al yelled. "I hate you! Just stay away from me – I hate you!"

Roy lurched forward, reaching for him yet again, but this time the shadow faded like mist between his hands, and the sound of a slamming door hit him with an almost physical concussion. He slapped his hands against the wall and fumbled along the surface to Al's bedroom door, feeling for the knob. But as he grasped it, it refused to turn.

"Listen to me!" Roy called, rattling it. "There's no point trying to hole up in there, because you know I'm not going away."

"Leave me alone!"

"Not a chance, Alphonse. We're going to talk about this if it's the last thing we do. I'm staying here until we – "

A blue-white glow seemed to explode around him, half blinding him and driving him backwards against the opposite wall, one hand raised to shield his eyes. When the light faded, he lurched blindly forward again, hands lifted, groping for the door. But as his hands pressed again against the flat surface before him and swept back and forth, he recognized what Al had done.

"Very funny," he called, "but you have to put the door back eventually, Alphonse."

No answer. But that didn't surprise him. He tapped on the blank wall a few times, not sure what he was looking for, maybe trying to find a hollow spot or something. But even if he did, what would he do then – put a fist through it?

Finally, setting his forehead and hands against the wall with a sigh, he called out again. "Fine, stay in there and think for a while. But this isn't over, Alphonse. I may not agree with what Yuen did, but we still have to talk about this. You're becoming an adult, and you have to start behaving like one, instead of throwing tantrums. I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not going to rest until we get this settled. I can't let you cripple yourself for the rest of your life, even if you hate me for trying to help you."

Again he waited, but heard nothing from the other side of the wall. For a fleeting moment, he wished that it were Ed inside the room instead of Al. At least then, he'd have the dubious comfort of hearing things smashing against the wall, and perhaps the breaking of furniture. Alphonse, on the other hand, was going to huddle in silence on his bed and brood, wallowing in his sense of betrayal.

And Roy, turning around to slump back against the wall and stare into the shadows, wasn't entirely sure that the kid would be wrong. Maybe Roy had indeed betrayed him, trying to get the teacher involved. But how else could he have responded to his helplessness in the face of Al's incomprehensible action? He'd hoped that Doctor Yuen could help him persuade his young ward to undo what had been done. Had he just been abdicating his own responsibility?

It hardly mattered now, did it? Because instead of helping, the man had thrown everything back into Roy's lap, and left him where he'd been before. Except that Roy now had to deal with the extra fact of Al's whole professional future being ruined.

At last he pushed away from the wall and got himself ready for bed. Not that he really expected to sleep. He had to think, had to find something to say that would be persuasive when he and Al talked in the morning. Something, anything that would help Alphonse understand that his housemate hadn't been trying to manipulate him, but had only been trying to help. Surely, after he calmed down, he'd be able to think, to see things from Roy's point of view. Hadn't Alphonse always been the level-headed brother, the empathetic one, who understood the thoughts and feelings of other people, the one who'd been able to see all sides of an issue?

Yet he hadn't exactly been thinking rationally lately, had he? Roy could imagine him holing up in his bedroom for days, refusing to communicate, or even to eat. Or else…

Or else he might leave, the man acknowledged with a sinking heart. He could wake up in the morning and find the bedroom next door empty, and Alphonse vanished into the night.

Roy crawled into bed and laid there, staring at the ceiling. As he'd expected, he couldn't make himself close his eyes, instead lying widely awake as the minutes and then the hours began to crawl past. Straining his ears in the dark, he barely allowed himself to breathe, lest he miss any small sound in the hallway. If he was awake, he'd be sure to see the light of the alchemic reaction if Al changed the door back. He just needed to stay alert.

That was…if Alphonse left by the door at all. He could just as easily go out the window and never recreate the door at all, fashioning instead a ladder or stairway down into the yard. And he'd vanish – to Risembool, to the wilderness, Roy couldn't begin to guess where – and if Al didn't want to be found, then no one would ever see him again.

It was a horrible thought, one that Roy couldn't even bear to contemplate. To lose the boy – lose that cheerful smile in the morning, the quiet companionship in the evening, the laughter, the new view of the world he'd discovered as he'd watched Alphonse reacquaint himself with all his new sensations…

_Ed_, he thought, swallowing the involuntary lump in his throat, _I'm so sorry. You left him in my care and I've ruined everything. What would you have done if you were here and Al had done this to himself?_

Somehow…he didn't think this would have happened at all, if Ed had been here. Or if it had, Ed would have yelled, and Al would have listened, and everything would have been fixed.

Because Ed was the big brother – not Roy. And no matter how much he loved his young ward, the man thought bitterly to himself in the dark, he would always be inadequate in the most important moments, when Alphonse needed his big brother. He was second best, and that just wasn't good enough.

He lay so thoroughly mired in these gloomy thoughts that when the bright glow finally appeared, reflecting off the wallpaper on the wall across the hallway, it took him a few seconds to recognize what it was. Heart racing, he closed his eyes just in time, as the footsteps paused briefly outside his door, Al no doubt peeking in to make sure his housemate was asleep. Finally the bedroom door closed with a light click, and the footsteps resumed. Even as Roy flung his covers back, he could hear them receding lightly along the hall, and quickly down the stairs.

He threw on some pants and slipped into his shoes. Grabbing a shirt, he gingerly pressed himself against the wall and opened his bedroom door, in time to hear the front door opening and closing again. Dashing down the stairs, slipping his arms into the shirt as he went, he grabbed his jacket from the closet, and his keys from the little table near the door. He zipped them into a jacket pocket, to keep them from jangling, and stepped outside.

Alphonse was halfway down the block already. The air had cooled slightly from the warmth of the day, and he'd put on his light summer jacket. As far as Roy could tell, as the boy strode quickly into and out of the light of a streetlamp, he didn't seem to be carrying a suitcase or even a backpack. But if he was running away, he'd probably be resourceful enough to get anything he needed as he traveled.

On the other hand, if he was just going for a long walk to clear his head, it might prove embarrassing when he finally got back to the house and found his housemate coming in behind him.

But until Roy knew for sure, he didn't plan to take any chances. He melted into the shadows as best he could, following at a safe distance as Alphonse set out into the night.


	5. Big Brother

He was wearing Ed's red coat.

It stretched far too tightly across the shoulders, the sleeves were too short, and it only came down, now, to his knees. But as Al passed under the first street lamp, near the corner of the block he and Roy lived on, the garment flashed brightly in the light before darkening again as he stepped into the shadows on the other side.

At first he followed the residential sidewalks, encountering street lamps just often enough that Roy was forced to hang back some distance. This journey through the night quickly took on a repetitive pattern: slow down as the boy walked into the light, then hurry to catch up after he'd gone through. Pause before entering the light himself, checking that Al was facing away from him. Hurry through the brightness, hoping the kid hadn't chosen that moment to glance over his shoulder. Find him again in the darkness ahead, and slow down as he walked under another street lamp.

If Roy was caught out and Al started running, deliberately slipping into the shadows, he'd probably get away. And who knew when – or if – he'd ever be seen again?

The hushed night enveloped them, the houses on either side of the street looming against the star-spattered sky. The sweet, cool dampness of growing things floated around them, the trees along the sidewalk rustling slightly as the air stirred, hedges and flower beds giving off a faint perfume. Barely a sound intruded into the silent chase between man and boy, except an occasional motor as some lone vehicle blocks away moved through an intersection.

Roy jerked to a halt and pressed into the shadows against the trunk of a large elm tree. Al had stopped beneath a street lamp up ahead, stooping briefly, then straightening with – naturally – a cat in his arms. The young man stroked its black fur for a moment, scritching the white bib under its chin. It bonked its head a couple of times against him in return. He leaned his head down and pressed his cheek to its side, the light above him bringing a warm glow to his golden brown hair.

When he set the cat back on the ground, it waited, tail high and happy, until he had run his hand twice down its back. Then it scampered away, intent on its own business. Alphonse watched it disappear into the darkness and then, the red coat fluttering, he resumed his walk along the streets.

Roy closed his eyes and swallowed around the sudden tightness in his throat. But immediately his eyes flew open again as he hurried after the disappearing boy.

He still wasn't sure where Al was going. Gracia lived in the other direction, as did Fletcher and Russell, and they'd already passed the two intersections that would have led them to the school. Roy had wondered at first if Al was hoping to break into Yuen's school rooms and retrieve everything in his cupboard, but clearly that wasn't his plan.

Nor, Roy realized in a sudden wave of relief, was he heading for the train station. There was still time, then. All was not yet lost.

Gradually they left the residential streets behind. Passing north of the Central Headquarters complex, they hurried along the river past several blocks of uniform, multi-storied government buildings. Roy had to hang back even farther now, as the street lamps seemed to crowd thick and heavy here, but at least he had a clear view of his target, even a couple of blocks away. When Al abruptly turned left, onto a narrow bridge that led from a small park and across the river, Roy might finally have lost him. Except that the bridge ended in only one place, a vast, almost lightless region on the other side of the river.

Of course. The red coat. Roy should have guessed.

The military cemetery spread in darkness beyond the high wrought iron gates. They'd been shut for the night but that was, of course, no obstacle for Alphonse Elric. With the sound of a soft clap, and a flash of blue-white light, several of the metal bars bent to one side, leaving a space wide enough for a man to step through. The young man had already slipped between the bars by the time Roy sprinted up to the gates.

A few paved walkways meandered through the cemetery, with street lamps set at an occasional bend in the way, but for the most part it was nothing but a wide, gently rolling expanse lit only by the twinkling stars, dotted in places with stately trees. The myriad silent tombstones stretched in orderly rows on every side.

Roy knew the way without even seeing where Al was going, and he followed more slowly now, his heart thudding heavily in his throat. He and Gracia had often come this way together, and he'd walked here alone more times than he could count, when he needed some peace to clear his head. He and Gracia had agreed, recently, that by the end of the summer they would plant a sapling behind the tombstone. In the coming years, Maes would rest in a pleasant, shady place. There might even be flowers; they hadn't finalized all the details quite yet.

But of course, this wasn't about Maes Hughes, and it wasn't this grave that had drawn Al here tonight.

The tall sculpture had been set just beyond Maes's resting place, encircled by a series of two-foot high pillars of stone about five feet apart, with a single chain looping from pillar to pillar. A broad granite column rose up seven feet from its platform set in the grass, and upon the column stood the marble statue of Edward Elric that had been commissioned to honour the People's Alchemist.

He was not buried here, resting instead beside his mother in the small village cemetery back in Risemboul. But both the military and the new government of Amestris had also wanted to commemorate him as one of their own, despite Al's reluctance. The surviving brother had known how uncomfortable Ed would have been, to be claimed in such a way, but there was no denying that he had done great service to this city and his country. So the plans would have gone ahead, with or without Al's cooperation.

The first choice for the location of the statue had been the parade square in front of Central Headquarters, but even Roy had shuddered at that. Finally, when he suggested that they place it instead near the grave of Maes Hughes, the young man's good friend and occasional mentor, all parties had agreed that this was an appropriate choice, and even Alphonse had been mollified.

So the statue had been carved and lifted into place: Edward Elric at one and a half times normal size (he'd have appreciated that), with his arms folded across his chest, head tilted slightly to one side, braid hanging down his back and the red coat with the inscribed flamel symbol flaring about his legs. One sleeve riding up, revealing about an inch of his automail arm. And on his face a jaunty expression, as though he were about to break into his typical mischievous grin.

Roy could barely see more than the outline of the statue now, as he settled himself on Maes's tombstone, legs stretched out in front of him, hands stuck into his jacket pockets. Al was a vague blur against the light grey granite column, and Roy didn't think the boy had realized, even yet, that he'd been followed.

Another soft clap as Al bent, followed by a quick flare of light. Roy watched a second rough stone column break through the grass and grow from the ground in front of the statue, lifting the young man with it until his face was level with the head on the sculpture. And as Al placed his hands on either side of that face, Roy pulled out one of the gloves that he always had ready in the pockets of every jacket or coat he owned.

Might as well give the kid the light he needed. Roy recognized, now, exactly what he was up to.

Tugging on the glove, he squinted up into the darkness and chose his spots: to either side of Al, he decided, slightly above the youngster's head. Couldn't have any light coming from behind, to cast a shadow on the statue where he'd be working.

Roy activated the array on the glove, and snapped his fingers. Two globes of soft light burst into being with a faint crackle, bringing the face of the statue to life and burnishing Al's hair with a golden radiance.

He heard the young man's sharp gasp and saw his shoulders stiffen, and for a moment expected him to whirl around and glare down. But instead, Al visibly willed himself to relax and continue the job he'd come here to do. If there were going to be recriminations or accusations, those would come afterward.

Roy watched him work, almost absently keeping the oxygen flowing into the slightly hissing globes. Alphonse clapped his hands together and then applied his fingers, with delicate care, to the marble face of his brother.

There had always been something just a little bit…off…about the face. Roy had pondered it every time he'd looked at the statue, but had never quite been able to put his finger on what the problem was. Something about the nose? The eyes too close together…or, for that matter, too far apart? The problem was so subtle that he'd never managed to pin it down. He'd thought maybe that it was just his memory that was faulty, since nobody else had ever said anything.

But obviously Alphonse had seen it too. And he, who had known Ed's face so well, knew exactly where the flaw lay. His strongest alchemical talent might lie in other areas – his soul alchemy, to be precise – but he'd worked in stone often enough at his brother's side that he knew what to do.

Apparently it was indeed the nose that wasn't quite right.

The boy moved his fingers over the marble, slowly, carefully, as though caressing his brother's cheeks, the blue-white sheen of his alchemy augmenting the illumination cast by Roy's glowing lights. At his elbows the red sleeves of the coat fluttered, marking the movements of his hands. The changes on the statue were subtle and barely noticeable. Yet as he touched the nose, tracing a finger lightly down one side and then the other, it changed the whole face. The smile seemed to deepen, the glint in the eyes to sharpen.

All around man, boy, and statue, outside the circle of light they inhabited, the night lay dark and undisturbed, cocooning them in a blanket of silence. Even the periodic sounds of late-travelling vehicles that had punctuated their quiet chase through the city did not reach this place, across the river. The hiss of the burning globes was the merest breath of sound, so constant it was hardly noticeable after a couple of minutes.

Someone had placed flowers on a nearby grave earlier in the day; Roy could smell them. Roses, perhaps. He breathed the cool night air, absorbing the peace. He stuck his ungloved hand back into a pocket and watched the small motions of Al's fingers. Close, he thought. The kid was getting very close. Now Al smoothed the end of the nose as though tickling it. Almost there…

And then it was done. Roy recognized it just as Al did, and nodded as his young friend dropped his hands and stepped back, head tilted to one side. The face was perfect now. An exact likeness. It could have been Ed, come back to life. Ed strong and vital, as he had been on that last morning…

Al regarded his handiwork in silence before he stirred again, lifting a hesitant hand. He laid it gently along one of the cheeks, his thumb moving slowly on the cold white skin, the caress this time unmistakable. So pale…colourless…lifeless…

He pulled his hand back, raising the other, holding them apart as though about to clap. Hesitating…

Roy held his breath. _No, Al_, he thought, heart racing.

Soul alchemy…the ability to place a piece of soul into an inanimate object…to make the object move…

_No!_ Roy thought again.

It would be counterfeit – it wouldn't be real – it would hurt too much –

Al's shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. When he did clap his hands together, he merely went to one knee, placing his palms flat on the surface of the stone pedestal upon which he stood. Slowly it shrank beneath him, receding into the ground and dispersing back into the elements from which he'd created it. He allowed the grass to close over it, and stood motionless on the ground, solemnly gazing up at the statue for another moment.

Then he stepped over the looped chain and walked slowly to Maes Hughes's grave, settling himself without a word on a corner of the tombstone, beside Roy.

Roy raised his gloved hand, prepared to snuff out the glow above their heads, but lowered the hand instead to his knee. The two of them shared a long silence, looking up at Edward Elric's face. Ed's bright, strong – young – face.

_You love him_, Yuen had said. _You will know._

And suddenly Roy knew.

He took a deep breath. "It's hard, isn't it," he murmured, "to realize that he's always going to stay the same?"

He received no answer, but he hadn't expected to. A quick sideways glance revealed only Al's uplifted face, jaw tight, brows drawn together.

"I mean," Roy continued softly, "he's going to be eighteen forever. While you turn eighteen…twenty-eight…thirty-eight… We're all going to keep going and leave him behind, while Ed never has the chance to grow into the great man he was going to become."

Still no answer. Except that Al hugged his arms across his chest, his wide grey eyes never moving from his brother's face, high above.

Roy licked his lips. "It's coming…and soon. The day you become the same age he was. And then the worst moment of all – when you are older than him."

"Please," Al breathed, almost without sound, lips beginning to tremble.

"And when that happens," Roy went on, knowing he might never get another chance to say these things, "when you have that birthday, everything changes. Because he's no longer older than you. He'll no longer be wiser and more experienced. He won't be your big bro – "

"Don't!" Al cried. He bowed his head over the arms pulled tightly across his chest, each hand convulsively clutching a clump of red fabric at his elbows. "Please. Oh please – don't say it."

Roy fell silent for a moment. At his side, the sound of the boy's breathing grew more ragged. A single tear fell onto one of Al's hands, and Roy looked away, blinking back his answering tears.

"I'm so sorry, Alphonse," he said, finally. "More than you can begin to imagine. It hurts so much, to think of them – stopped – never progressing beyond that last moment, never growing old with us. This isn't the way it was supposed to be. It's never the way it was supposed to be." He swiped his ungloved hand across both his eyes. "But Al. Do you really want to stay seventeen forever? Stay the little brother forever? Is that truly what you want? Do you actually believe you can do that?"

Al said nothing, averting his face, eyes closed.

Roy sighed. "And even if that's what you're trying to do – do you really think that's what Ed would have wanted? What he fought for, all those years, when he tried to get your body back?"

A brief stiffening of the shoulders. At last, "You're fighting dirty," Al muttered.

"I know," Roy agreed gently. "I'm sorry."

"Why…" It was the merest plaintive whisper. "Why did you follow me?"

"Why do you think, Alphonse? Ed would have understood why. He and I have that in common."

The young man swallowed. "I don't know what to do," he whispered.

They fell into silence once more, the peace of the cool night spread all around them. Again Roy considered snuffing out the light, but another glance at Al's face – uplifted, brimming eyes fixed on the statue – dissuaded him.

After a moment, the young man wiped one of the red sleeves across his eyes. "Do you think…do you think he'd be mad at me now? Because of…you know?"

Dammit – the kid sounded so _young_. Roy's throat tightened, but he made his lips curve upward and forced a light tone into his voice. "Maybe not mad, exactly. But can't you just hear him? 'I worked all these years to get your body back, and you do something to make sure you stay _short_ your whole life?'"

Al pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and emitted a half-laugh, half-sob. "Oh yeah," he hiccupped. "He'd say that, all right." Another laugh. "He'd be _furious_ with me. And I…I guess he'd be right, wouldn't he?" A glum sigh. "I'm so stupid. I'm really, really stupid."

"No, kiddo, you're not stupid. Just a bit mixed up, that's all."

"Now you're being diplomatic." Al straightened and, for the first time, looked his companion in the eyes. He barely even had to lift his head to do it. "I guess you sort of know how I feel about things, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You lost your big brother too."

Roy's breath caught, the tombstone under his legs pressing cold against his skin. He swallowed and smiled wryly. "I…guess you're right. I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right."

"Still…" Al looked down at his hands, now clenched side by side in his lap. "You didn't…alter yourself because of it. Not like I have."

Roy took a breath. "Well…there were some things – deadly things, actually – that I was tempted to do when I lost him. You don't have a monopoly on that sort of thing, Alphonse." The boy's eyes flew back to his face, and Roy managed an awkward shrug. "For what it's worth, it helped that I had you and Ed as an example of why it's taboo."

Again Al lowered his gaze. "Roy…I…I'm sorry. For everything. Especially tonight." He took a deep breath. "I…I guess I really do still need a big brother. To keep me from being such a complete idiot."

Roy managed a laugh. "Ed? Keep you from being an idiot? Are we talking about the same person?" His smile faded and he added quietly, "I know I'll never be able to fill his shoes. But I'll always be here, and I'll always do whatever I can when you need me."

Al nodded, gulping, eyes still downcast. Slowly he leaned over and rested his head on Roy's shoulder, releasing his breath in a long sigh. Roy closed his eyes, tilting his own head to lay his cheek against the boy's hair. Slowly, deprived of their consistent supply of oxygen, the glowing lights to either side of the statue above them sputtered, hissing, and at last went out.

He wasn't sure how long they sat together on the edge of the tombstone. He even wondered if Alphonse had finally fallen asleep. But after a while, the youngster stirred and Roy lifted his head. "You ready to go home?" he wondered.

Al nodded, stretching and yawning. "If I let myself fall asleep, I might never make it all the way back. I don't know if I will anyway."

"Then I'll get us a cab."

"At this hour? The streets were pretty empty, coming here."

Roy flashed a smile. "I'm the Flame Alchemist, kid, remember? I can do anything."

"Now you really do sound like Ed." Al stepped – almost hopped – from the tombstone, standing up and bending backwards as he stretched his arms above his head. For a moment he lifted his face for a final look at the statue of his brother, a dark shape silhouetted against the starry background. Then he sighed and turned away. "Let's go," he said. "I think I'm done."

The boy strode off without a backward glance along the path toward the gate, his red coat swirling about his knees as he vanished into the shadows. Roy followed at a more leisurely pace, tugging off his glove and stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. Gradually his steps slowed until they stopped altogether. Half turning, he looked back toward the statue on the pillar, eyes finally coming to rest on the tombstone almost at its feet.

"The things I made you put up with," he murmured with a wry smile. "Big brother."


	6. Some Delicate Work

"This is humiliating," Alphonse muttered.

Roy could hardly blame him for feeling that way – lying naked on a high narrow table in a small room draped with red curtains, with an audience of two men rather more preoccupied with his nether regions than any 17-year old could possibly be comfortable with.

But Doctor Yuen paused in his task – drawing an alchemic array on Al's lower abdomen – and focused a sharp gaze at his young student. The lamplight drew glittering sparks from the gold threads woven into his red tunic as his hands hovered just above the bare skin. "Yes," he agreed, "it is humiliating. And is what you deserve, for doing such a foolish thing. Is that not right?"

Al sighed in resignation and stared at the ceiling. "Yes, sir," he murmured.

The man returned to his work, tracing a complex array on the young man's pelvic and abdominal region with a stick of greasy black paint. Roy had been surprised to discover that the Xingian was not only a doctor but an alchemist as well. Yuen didn't advertise this as one of his skills – not all of his students were alchemists, after all – but obviously he was going to be of more help to Alphonse than Roy had ever expected.

The array was so detailed and intricate that the doctor had been working on it for fifteen minutes already. Roy watched intently, trying to understand the unusual symbols and their placement, but they were so strange to him that he couldn't really follow their intent.

Yuen caught his eye and smiled. "It has to be so complex," he remarked, "because we need to do many things inside before we are finished. I must have all the tools ready in case I need them."

"So you'll do the work?" Roy asked, eyes narrowed as he watched the doctor's careful placement of another symbol. "Even though Al made the initial changes?"

"We will work together. We will both activate the array, and Alphonse will guide me to where I need to go."

"I'm going to make everything worse, I know it," Al interjected miserably.

Roy set a comforting hand on the young man's shoulder. Al's wide grey eyes darted briefly to his face before returning to their fixation on the ceiling. A thin film of sweat sheened his forehead and upper lip.

"We are almost ready," Yuen said.

"You can do this, Al," Roy added softly.

"Yes," the doctor nodded. He added one final line to connect the last symbol to the larger circle before standing back to regard the completed design with a careful eye. "You made the first changes, Alphonse. You will be able to make these as well. And then…," once more the sharp glance, "you will never do such a mad thing again."

Al swallowed hard. "No, sir," he agreed once more, his voice meek. "Never again."

If his eyes hadn't been glued to the ceiling, he might have caught Yuen's amused wink. Roy would have been tempted to chuckle, if he weren't so worried. It was a comfort, at least, that the Xingian seemed so confident that this procedure would work.

Yuen set the paint stick on a wooden tray at the end of the table. The candles on the tall candlesticks at either end of the tray flickered briefly from the movement, making the lines of the array seem to writhe on the pale skin. Returning to Al's side, the doctor said quietly, "All is prepared, Alphonse. Are you ready?"

Roy's hand tightened on the young man's shoulder. Al met the doctor's eyes and, his jaw tightening, he nodded once. Already his brows drew together as he set aside his nervousness and concentrated on the task at hand.

If there was anything at which Al was skilled, Roy reminded himself, it was complex and unusual alchemy. And he had that Elric knack of focusing all his attention on the alchemy, even when it was being performed on his own body. It was probably that same presence of mind, Roy mused, that had made Ed capable of retrieving his brother's soul and attaching it to the armour, even while bleeding from the loss of his limbs.

Now he watched all of Alphonse's attention turn toward this intriguing problem as he lifted his hand in tandem with the doctor's and placed it on the circle on his abdomen.

Roy blinked through the bright flash of light as the array activated. With his hand set on the curve of Al's shoulder, he could sense the blaze of new energy springing into being, as well as the kid's sharp catch of breath at the sudden surge.

"Now," Yuen said calmly. "Tell me what you did the first time."

Al's breathing settled immediately, as he began to relate the steps he had taken to try to stop the progress of his own puberty. Roy listened, a mere bystander, as doctor and student discussed various organs and body parts, as calmly and clinically as though they were dissecting some anonymous cadaver. Follow this vein here, find that valve there, take the source of this other, close off this, banish that…it was very confusing for someone whose medical knowledge was merely rudimentary.

"I see," Yuen nodded, eyes closed as his hand rested lightly on Al's abdomen, "you did not just close if off…"

"Right." Al, gazed blindly again at the ceiling. "I knew there would be problems if I didn't stop everything altogether…"

"Of course. Very wise. There could eventually have been a rupture otherwise."

"Exactly."

"I see that you were very thorough. And made certain to understand the function of all the parts before you acted."

"I tried to be as careful as I could."

Roy's chest constricted, and he closed his eyes. This kid – this damn fool – he could have killed himself! And he'd obviously studied well in advance before he did this. It was no spur of the moment act. If Roy weren't so worried about him, he'd kill him for doing such a stupid, dangerous thing. At times, Al was more like Ed than anyone had ever expected. He was just more subtle about it, which made it even worse. You at least had a chance to try to counteract something that blared its existence at you, at the top of its lungs…

"Very well," Yuen's voice interrupted Roy's thoughts. "We will begin. First we must work backwards from where you ended…"

So they were done their preliminary analysis. Roy swallowed as the two began talking each other through the process. It took great strength of will for him to keep his hand from turning into a clutching claw on the boy's arm. He watched Al's own hand move slowly under the doctor's direction, the forefinger tracing a path back and forth across his abdomen in response to Yuen's quiet instructions.

They both had their eyes closed now, to concentrate without distraction on the work being done beneath the skin and under the glowing array.

"Can you tell if the valve can be opened?" Yuen asked.

"It can't," Al murmured. "I sealed it completely."

"Very well. You must create another opening, but the muscles must be made elastic so the new valve can function. I will guide you…"

Roy saw Alphonse wince and bite his lip as he performed the task as instructed. The farther along they went, the more his brows drew together in a frown, partly of concentration but also, Roy realized, of pain. This procedure clearly wasn't easy or straightforward. He imagined the work as being something like setting your own bone or taking out a bullet without anesthetic. He hoped, suppressing a shudder, that that was an exaggeration.

"This was very thorough," Yuen remarked quietly. "I am impressed that you were able to keep them separate this way."

"I knew it could get very bad if I didn't," Al whispered back.

Roy took care to breathe and keep himself relaxed as he watched the two medical alchemists continue their work. Realizing that he just couldn't manage to keep his hand unclenched, he finally removed it from Al's shoulder, allowing it to tighten on the edge of the table instead. He suspected the boy didn't even notice. Alphonse continued tracing his fingers around and around on his skin, responding in mere whispers now, as he and Yuen worked together.

As he'd so often done in other situations, Roy tried to concentrate on the alchemy itself to calm his mind and keep his emotions from clouding his thinking. He watched in fascination as first one part of Yuen's array and then another swelled with light as different internal tasks were performed. If Roy had had some idea of the meaning of the symbols, he might have been able to follow what was going on a lot more easily.

Although…he wasn't sure he wanted to, really. He had a swift, incongruous vision of Havoc crossing his legs under the table in that diner a few days ago, the first time he'd heard about what Al had done. Roy fought back the sudden urge to giggle, recognizing the potential hysteria of tension and fear. Instead he forced his concentration back onto the symbols of the array.

It bothered him rather a lot that the symbol he believed referred to blood was being set aglow quite as much as it was…

"Alphonse." A chiding tone this time, in the doctor's voice.

"What?"

"You did far too much, to try to make this permanent."

"Well…I kind of wanted it to be…" Al's voice faded as he frowned again, eyes still closed. His breath caught as though something particularly painful had happened inside, and then he swallowed, sighing as though it had passed.

Roy slowly let out his own breath. Across the table, Yuen's eyes opened and the doctor gave him a faint smile. "It is complex, General," the man murmured, "but all is well."

Roy allowed himself a cautious nod. Below him, Al's eyes opened as well. He said nothing, meeting Roy's eyes, but lifted his free hand. Roy enclosed it with both his own, trying to manufacture an encouraging smile, and pressed the hand against his stomach as the young man closed his eyes again.

He could have lost his young ward, his friend – his little brother – and never even known why. He clutched Al's hand as though it could keep him from reeling.

The work continued, Al's fingers moving back and forth, around and around his abdomen as Yuen directed, one section after another of the complex array glowing with power as the two of them carefully repaired the damage that had been done inside the young man's body. And at last Al expelled his breath in a great whoosh as Yuen opened his eyes and lifted his head.

"Finished," the doctor said, smiling at Roy, before bending to pick something up from beneath the table.

"Finished," Al echoed weakly, then rolled over and vomited into the bucket Yuen produced just in time.

They let him lie there and doze for a while longer, as the two men stepped aside.

"How long till things get back to normal?" Roy asked.

"We can't be certain, but I would guess two weeks. It will take time for the body to become accustomed to its new shape."

"New…shape." Roy shifted uneasily, and again fought the impulse to cross his legs. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"The boy needed to change the route taken by some things inside. But all things will work properly, and he will feel no different than he would have done before." The Xingian doctor's eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. "Do not worry, General Mustang. He will be fine."

"But…what if…"

"We will worry about that if there is no change. Give him time first."

Roy tried to follow the man's advice, though he couldn't help but worry at Al's pale face and his weakness when they finally walked back outside to the car. Alphonse took several deep breaths along the way, as though trying to reinvigorate himself, but he took his steps with great care, and sank into the car seat with a long sigh of relief.

Roy put on a casual attitude as he drove. "When we get home," he said, checking the cross street and braking as he approached an intersection, "I'll make you a big sandwich and you can put your feet up for the afternoon." Nobody was coming from either direction, so he sped up again, giving the young man a quick glance as he did so.

Al didn't look up, his temple pressed against the window on the passenger side, his weary eyes closed. "I don't need a sandwich," he murmured. "I think I'll just go to bed."

"Are you sure? You were too nervous to eat breakfast. You must be hungry now that it's all over."

"I wouldn't be able to keep it down anyway."

"What do you mean?"

Al gave a little shrug. "I probably won't be able to eat till tomorrow sometime. I'll throw up if I try. Maybe I'll manage some soup by tonight, but I don't know."

"I don't like the sound of that," Roy frowned.

"Don't worry. I'll be all right in a day or two, like before."

"But I don't understand why you would feel that sick."

"I guess my body doesn't like it when I rearrange things in there," Al whispered. He took a slow, careful breath. "I'll be all right," he said again. "Eventually."

Roy drove on, trying to concentrate on the road, but unable to prevent another quick glance at the young man. Al's face really did seem quite pale. "I don't know," the man muttered. "I might still call Yuen after we get you to bed. I don't like the look – "

He stopped suddenly, as a thought occurred to him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alphonse's head turn. "Roy…?"

"Al…," he said slowly. "You had that bad spell a few weeks ago. Remember? When I threw out the rest of the pork roast because you couldn't seem to keep anything down?"

A long silence. He glanced over and saw the alarm flash into his companion's eyes, before they slid away from his face. He waited.

Slowly the colour crept into the young man's cheeks as he looked out the window, down at his hands, anywhere but at the older man. "Well…," he said at last. "I guess that…would have been the day, yes."

Roy took a deep breath, his jaw setting. "I see." And he drove on in silence for several moments, until at last he muttered, "Dammit, Al."

"I know, I know," Alphonse said in a rush. "It was a stupid thing to do, and I'm sorry, and I'll never do anything that stupid again. I don't know how many more times I can say it."

"I just don't know if that's good enough, kid, and I don't know how you're going to make this up to me."

"What? To you? Roy, what do you – "

"I mean," Roy interrupted, "it was a perfectly good roast gone to waste, and those things aren't cheap, you know. It's gone, and you can never bring it back."

It took a few seconds. Finally, with a strangled squeak, Al burst into laughter, a wave of relief breaking across his face. "Roy! You're so mean – and I deserve it – " The young man collapsed against the door, holding his arms tightly across his stomach, the giggles intermingling with groans of nausea.

"You bet I am," Roy grinned. "And you do deserve it."

"You're never going to let me live this down, are you?"

"What do you think?" The man cast his narrow, sidelong smile glance across the front seat, and the youngster groaned again, hiccupping with mirth. But already some of the pallor was gone, a healthier flush creeping into his skin.

Roy nodded to himself in satisfaction, wheeling the car around the last corner that turned into the street they lived on. He'd let Al sleep the afternoon away, but he'd have a big pot of chicken soup ready for supper. Things were going to be all right now.

________________

_(Author's Note: I thought this would be 6 chapters long, but it's going to have 7 instead. So, not quite done, but almost. Thanks so much for your patience!)_


	7. Several Awakenings

"So how long has it been?" Havoc frowned, leaning back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed.

"Four weeks, more or less," Roy answered, not lifting his eyes from the cutting board.

"And there's been no reaction in a whole month?"

"It's not a problem," Roy answered shortly. "Yuen said it would take time."

"He said two weeks," Havoc reminded him, "and it's been twice that long. Aren't you going to do anything?"

"I," Roy said, stepping past his guest and lifting the pot lid to check the boiling potatoes, "can't do a thing. So I'm going to keep on not doing anything." He set the lid back, blinking away the warm steam.

"You could talk to the doctor about it, you know."

"I could, but I'm not going to. I don't think that's my call any more. It's Al's."

"And what does he say?"

Roy returned to the cutting board, leaning both hands on the edge of the counter, staring at the two tomatoes on the board beside the knife. "He's not saying anything now, and I'm not pressing him. We both know what this means, and I think he's started to resign himself to the thought that it didn't work."

Havoc shifted, running a hand over his spiky hair. "There's got to be something else you can do. I just can't imagine…"

"I know you can't," Roy retorted. "But for Al's sake, it's about time you did. Time we all did." He picked up the knife and began slicing the tomatoes into wedges. "Or you could, you know…" the knife paused halfway into a tomato as he cast a pointed glance at the other man, "…just stop thinking about it so much."

Havoc met his gaze, one eyebrow raised. Roy could almost see him resisting the urge to say, "Well, you were the one who told us about this in the first place." But one of the reasons they were such good friends was that Jean knew, most of the time, when it was important to keep pushing and when it was better just to shut up in the face of his friend's irrational demands.

The other man did allow himself a grimace of regret, but nodded, "Yeah, I suppose you're right. It's just…too bad, that's all. He's going to miss so much…" Havoc straightened as the back door opened. "Oh. Hey, Al. That's a lot of green stuff." He peered into the large ceramic bowl of herbs the young man carried. "You sure you know what all that stuff is? Not planning to poison us for dinner, are you?"

Al snorted. "Of course I know what everything is. We don't grow anything poisonous in our herb garden." He added, eyes sparkling, "We keep those plants on the other side of the yard. And we hardly ever mix them up." Then he stared into the bowl. "I think I might have picked too much, though."

"Don't worry, we can dry a lot of it," Roy said, scooping the tomatoes into the salad bowl. "It's almost time to start drying most of what's out there, anyway. It won't be long till the weather starts turning."

Al set the bowl down beside the cutting board. The bouquet of aromas was so rich it was almost dizzying. "We can sprinkle some of this rosemary on the potatoes when they're done." He twirled a small rosemary branch between two fingers before dropping it back into the bowl. "And the basil will go fine in the salad. I'll hang up the rest in a minute." He walked past Havoc to the window, gazing into the yard where Hawkeye had almost finished picking flowers for a table centerpiece.

Roy watched him for a moment. His young housemate's shoulders, silhouetted against the late afternoon sunlight outside, were still strong and broad, arms and legs just as sturdy. _Maybe_, the man thought, _maybe there will at least be enough hormones to…_ He wrenched his thoughts back to the present. He couldn't lecture Havoc unless he was going to live by the same rules himself. Time to move on. Even if…

"So Jean," he said, "what do you think of that new gym they installed in the east wing?"

"Breda's already checked it out," the other man said, wandering over to join Al at the window. "He says it's got all the equipment you could ever need. Al, you're going to love it. We can spar there sometimes if you'd like." A pause, as though waiting for an answer. Then Havoc shrugged and continued. "Anyway, Breda and I are thinking of detouring through there a few mornings a week on our way in to work."

"Just so long as it's got a shower," Roy remarked, and Havoc snorted.

"Don't worry, we're not idiots. We don't plan on coming straight from the gym to the office in our wool unif – "

Roy glanced over as his friend broke off in mid-word. With the two figures at the window outlined in light, it was hard to discern what it was that might have cut Havoc off. But then the man turned to face him, face seemingly frozen, eyes wide.

"Uh, Roy, I just, uh, remembered something I need to do outside," the other said. He glanced at Al, eyes moving downward, and then looked pointedly back at Roy. "Gotta, uh, tell Hawkeye something. Be right back." Again his eyes moved downward, this time his chin following suit. Pointing? He cast another determined look at Roy, then quickly exited into the yard, the door slamming behind him.

Roy wiped his hands on a towel, frowning. The guy was an idiot sometimes, whatever he claimed. Though there was usually a reason when he behaved oddly. What in the world could have –

He halted at Al's side and his eyes widened as Havoc's had done. The young man stood stiff and unaware of his companion, hands clenched at his sides, gaze fixed unmoving on something outside the window. Roy's eyes darted back and forth in alarm, as he tried to discover what might have triggered the shortness of breath and the fine line of moisture along Al's upper lip. But there appeared to be nothing out there, at least nothing dangerous. Havoc had already walked across the grass to the far end of the yard, and Hawkeye continued bending over to cut more flowers to put in her basket.

Yet Al was as alert and on edge as Roy had ever seen him. Every line of his body simply shouted tension. And why had Havoc…? At last, the man allowed his eyes to follow the path Jean's gaze had taken, moving downward.

He couldn't entirely suppress his gasp as his eyes flew back to Al's face, then out to the sight outside the window. Havoc had turned at the far end of the yard and now just stood there, arms folded, gazing back at the window. Knowing what Roy had just seen. But he might as well have been on the moon, for all Alphonse knew.

For the kid's gaze remained locked on the figure of Riza Hawkeye, bent over the flowers with her scissors. Riza in her tan slacks and white shirt, sleeves rolled up, pulled-back hair fanning over her shoulders and upper back like a fine veil of sunlit gold. Her forearms lightly tanned, strong, the hands so capable with guns and yet still able to handle flowers with delicacy and grace. She bent over again, scissors in hand. The slender waist enclosed in a narrow belt…the swelling curve of her hips…the straight lines of her slacks making her legs appear so long…

A wave of red, primal rage swept through Roy's mind, engulfing, almost obliterating his consciousness. For three seconds it rushed through, carrying him with it, as tumultuous as a tsunami, as irresistible as the compulsion to breathe. And as it passed, it jolted him until every nerve was left taut and tingling, every muscle primed, every drop of racing adrenaline at the ready. The knife was just two steps away. It would be so easy, so inevitable, to respond to the insistent, primitive impulses and slit the throat of his rival, his enemy, the threat to the urgent imperative that screamed through his blood and radiated from every pore, every nerve: Mine, _Mine, MINE!_

But every man with any life to him had experienced the same thing, and every civilized man controlled this urge, letting it pass, recognizing it for what it was. Roy, too, was a civilized man, and this was Al. His dear little brother Alphonse, who recognized – who really, finally, truly _recognized_ in every possible way, with every possible sense – all the deepest qualities of beauty.

Roy set a soft hand on the young man's shoulder, and felt the startled jump beneath his fingers. He leaned over and murmured in Al's ear, "She is absolutely gorgeous, isn't she?"

Al whirled around so quickly it was a wonder he didn't dislocate something. "Roy – I – I," he stammered, cheeks coloring, breath coming in quick gasps. "I don't – it's not what – please don't – I didn't mean – I – "

Roy just smiled. The red tide had receded as swiftly as it had arisen, and already his heart had filled with gladness. "It's okay, little brother," he said softly. "It's completely natural." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Riza straighten, lifting the basket of flowers and turning toward the house.

The young man closed his eyes, taking a breath, and when he opened them again, he managed a wry smile. "Sorry," he muttered. "It's just – this is going to take some getting used to. Now that it seems to be, well, back…" Then his eyes sparkled again and he flashed a mischievous, very Elric grin. "And yes – she's gorgeous. About time you noticed."

Roy laughed, accompanied by the sound of footsteps, and then the opening of the door.

"I think I've got enough to fill the vase," Riza began.

"Wait!" Al blurted. "I mean," he averted his eyes, his cheeks flaming, "I think I need to ask Jean something. Back in a minute!" And he rushed past the woman and out the door with such speed that a few strands of her hair lifted as he raced by.

Riza turned back to Roy, raising her eyebrows. "Something wrong?" she wondered. "He looked upset."

"There's not a thing wrong," Roy smiled, moving back to the counter near the cutting board, and leaning back against it. "And he wasn't upset, at least not in any way you're thinking of. Let's just say…he noticed you out the window. And when I say 'noticed'…"

She regarded him, frowning, for a couple of seconds until again her eyebrows shot up. "I…see," she said, a light color creeping up her cheeks. "Well, that makes things…interesting."

"Is it going to be a problem? I think Jean and I can help divert his attention and get his mind on other things during the dinner, until he gets used to this." Roy glanced out the window and saw Havoc now standing with Al, a hand on his shoulder, speaking quietly to him. Good man. Despite all his talk about those magazines, he was as experienced as any of them. "But if you feel uncomfortable," Roy added, turning his attention back to Riza, "and if you'd rather not stay for dinner this time, I'll understand."

"There won't be any problem at all. " Riza stepped to the counter on the other side of the sink, laying the basket down. "And think how Al would feel if I suddenly left. He'd know why, and he'd probably never be able to look me in the eyes again. Better to behave as though I don't know anything. After all." she added, "I've occasionally encountered cadets with the same problem, and we've all gotten through the experience just fine."

"I know you have. You do have a way of letting them feel they haven't been noticed until they get control of themselves again."

"All women have to learn to do that," Riza smiled. "The same way you men have to learn your own little tricks. Al will be fine over dinner, and so will I." She grabbed the vase waiting beside the sink and poured water into it. "And in a day or two, he'll probably have noticed that classmate of his instead, and I'll be out of the picture. Then you'll have to think of Fletcher, and start teaching him how to handle a rival who is also a friend."

_Like I'm the one to teach that sort of thing,_ Roy thought wryly, remembering his own reactions of just a few moments ago.

"Besides," Riza went on, beginning to separate the flowers in the basket, "I doubt it's me particularly that he's reacting to. I was just the first convenient woman who happened to be around when things finally woke up."

_No_, thought Roy, the breath tightening in his throat, _I really don't think that was the reason_.

He watched her strong, competent hands as they lifted flowers one by one out of the basket, snipped the ends of the stems at an angle, and placed them in the vase. He'd always admired her sense of colour and proportion.

Riza continued talking as she arranged the blooms, pausing occasionally to peer at her handiwork and make an adjustment. She didn't seem to have noticed that he had stopped answering. Or maybe she had. Maybe this was one of her own little "tricks." She remarked briskly, "What's important is that, from the sound of it, the fix has finally worked. I suppose you should call Doctor Yuen and let him know, and that will probably be an end of it." She tucked some strands of hair behind one ear. "I'll try to remember to remind you tomorrow."

As though she would forget. She never forgot anything important. Sometimes he felt as though he'd be completely lost in a fog without her.

"Still, Roy," Riza said. "I'm so glad he's finally back to normal." She glanced up, smiling, "That's got to be a big relief – what?" Another frown. "Roy? Is something wrong?"

For a moment he couldn't reply, but could only gaze at her, staring into her wide amber eyes, so deep he'd often thought he could drown in them. He stared the way he'd always wanted to, the way Alphonse had been doing just moments ago. She gazed back, meeting his eyes, the lines of her face softening. Her hands stopped moving, resting lightly on the remaining flowers in the basket.

_About time you noticed_, Al had said.

"Riza," Roy croaked, and then cleared his throat. "Would you…that is…" He pressed unexpectedly clammy palms against his pant legs. "I was just wondering…what you were doing Saturday night."

She lowered her gaze to the basket. The fresh, light perfume of the flowers wafted up from between her fingers. Her lips turned up slightly and she murmured, "What do you think?"


End file.
